The Immigration Conundrum

SixOfWands

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 3:58 pm

FranticFrummie wrote:

Please read my response to Marina, above.

Yup. I assumed that's what you were doing. I thought it presented an inaccurate picture, but I certainly understood what you were doing (ETA -- using round numbers to explain things to a tween), and why. But others seemed to have picked it up as an accurate number, and I don't understand why.

Last edited by SixOfWands on Mon, Jan 30 2017, 4:08 pm; edited 1 time in total

SixOfWands

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 4:07 pm

wondergirl wrote:

I cited the source in my comment but will cite it again for your benefit-- http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01.....gees/

All these "reports" are nothing but reports. After Trump won the election, there were lots of reports that Muslims and other liberals were getting harassed. These stories turned out to be false so pardon me for being cynical about "reports" that people are being mistreated because of the EO that Trump signed. That is especially since he did give Homeland Security and Secretary of State the power to admit refugees on a case by case basis so I have no doubt that they followed his orders to the letter and that it was all done in accordance to the constitution.

The judge may not have read the EO because her ruling failed to take this provision into account. Seems like everyone jumped the gun to quickly which has to stop so that we can get some peace in America.

What reports about Muslims (and Jews) being harassed turned out to be false?

You claim to have cited a source stating that no one was forced to return to their country, and everyone detained was freed to enter the US before any court order was issued. The article you cite simply include the EO. I'm asking for a source for your statements.

And while you have no doubt that court orders were followed, But here's an article saying it wasn't. http://www.thedailybeast.com/a......html

http://www.slate.com/articles/......html

So, again, please provide a source.

wondergirl

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 4:15 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

The bolded is not what I said. please read my comments carefully as I do not appreciate when people distort what I say or put words into my mouth.

That said, here is a source that says that everyone detained were released-- http://nypost.com/2017/01/30/a.....ased/

33055

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 4:16 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

Please quote me where I said that in my post.

You said it in your 3:17 post.

SixOfWands

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 4:17 pm

wondergirl wrote:

No longer detained = sent back, in many cases.

wondergirl

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 4:23 pm

Reports of hate crimes that turned out to be false--

http://pix11.com/2016/12/14/mu.....port/

https://www.bostonglobe.com/me......html

http://www.thegatewaypundit.co.....tion/

Last edited by wondergirl on Mon, Jan 30 2017, 4:25 pm; edited 1 time in total

theoneandonly

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 4:24 pm

I thought this was a really interesting, and different, take on the whole EO/immigration mess:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1.....ation

Quote:

President Trump has issued temporary immigration orders that ban citizens from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. This is a good opportunity to test the Persuasion Filter against what you might call the Hitler Filter.

For new readers of this blog, my starting point is the understanding that human brains did not evolve to show us reality. We aren’t that smart. Instead, our brains create little movies in our heads, and yours can be completely different from mine. We see that situation now. Half the country thinks President Trump is well on his way to becoming a Hitler-like dictator. But many other Americans think Trump is an effective business person with good intentions. They can’t both be right.

I use the word “filter” to describe an optional way of looking at the world. A good filter is one that makes you happy and does a good job of predicting what happens next. Let’s use that standard to compare the Hitler Filter to what I call the Persuasion Filter.

The Hitler filter clearly isn’t making people happy. The people watching that movie are protesting in the streets. Meanwhile, the people who see Trump as a good negotiator looking out for the country are quite happy with the job he has done so far. The Persuasion Filter says Trump opens with a big first offer and negotiates back to something reasonable. If you don’t recognize the method, it looks crazy, random, and racist.

But what about predictions?

The Persuasion Filter predicting Trump would become president when the Hitler Filter thought he had no chance. Now we have another chance to test the predictive power of the Persuasion Filter.

If Trump is a Master Persuader, as I have been telling you for over a year, he just solved his biggest problem with immigration and you didn’t notice. The biggest problem is that his supporters on the right want more immigration control than he can (or should) deliver while his many critics on the left want far less. Normally when you negotiate there is only one party on the other side. But in this case, Trump is negotiating two extremes in two different directions. It’s the toughest possible situation. Best case scenario is that 40% of the country want you dead when it’s all over. Not good.

So what does a President Trump do when he is in an impossible situation?

According to the Hitler Filter, he does more Hitler stuff, such as being more extreme than anyone expected with his recent immigration declarations. That filter accurately predicted that he would be “worse” once elected. Sure enough, his temporary immigration ban is more extreme than most people expected. If things never get worse from this point on, we would have to question the Hitler Filter. But if things get worse still, the Hitler Filter is looking good.

Compare to the Persuasion Filter. This filter says Trump always opens with an extreme first offer so he has room to negotiate to the middle. The temporary ban fits that model perfectly. On the immigration topic alone, both the Hitler Filter and the Persuasion Filter predict that we get to exactly the point we are at today. Let’s call that a tie in terms of predictive power. The hard part is predicting what happens next.

The Persuasion Filter says Trump is negotiating with his critics on the extreme right at the same time as he is negotiating with his critics on the left. He needed one “opening offer” that would set up both sides for the next level of persuasion. And he found it. You just saw it.

The left sees Trump’s executive orders on immigration as pure Hitler behavior. That gives him plenty of room to negotiate to the middle. The initial orders are too broad, and clearly target too many of the wrong people. As he fixes those special cases he will be moving away from the Hitler model toward the middle. And people are more influenced by the DIRECTION of things than the absolute position of things. As long as he is moving away from the Hitler analogy, people will chill out, even if they think he was too close to that position before. Direction matters.

Trump’s temporary immigration ban set a mental anchor in your brain that is frankly shocking. It will make his eventual permanent immigration plan (”extreme vetting”) look tame by comparison. The Persuasion Filter says that’s his strategy. Because that’s ALWAYS his strategy. He acts the same way every time. He wrote a book about it. He talks about it publicly. Then he does it right in front of us, over and over. And no matter how many times he does it, half the country still thinks the opening offer is the real one.

I’ve mentioned in this blog a few times that persuasion works even when the subject of the persuasion recognizes all the techniques as they happen. This is a perfect case. The left has been watching Trump make big offers and dial them back for the past year. And yet they still think this time it will be different. The Persuasion Filter says that 70-year old Trump will act the same way today as he has for the past several decades: Big first offer, then negotiate.

But what about Trump’s critics on the far right who want more extreme immigration? Trump needs to negotiate with them too. And he is. He did that by showing them that his temporary offer was so extreme that people took to the streets. The system (America) is actively trying to eject Trump like some sort of cancer cell. And the worse it gets, with protests and whatnot, the more leverage Trump has to tell his far right supporters that he has gone as far as the country will let him go. He needed that. The protests are working in his favor. He couldn’t negotiate with the extreme right without them.

Are Trump’s temporary immigration plans chaotic? Yes. Do they hurt innocent people who were minding their own business? Yes, temporarily at least. Did he scare the pants off of half the country? Yes. Will there be lots of unintended damage from Trump’s immigration orders? Yes. No honest person should deny the cost component of the equation. It’s ugly. But don’t stop with a half-pinion. If you want a full opinion on immigration you have to compare those costs to the potential benefits that include fewer terrorist acts and avoiding Europe’s refugee problems. Are people making that comparison?

No.

On Twitter I am seeing lots of well-meaning liberals tweet charts showing that no one from the banned countries has ever been a terrorist in the United States. But Trump isn’t trying to solve the PAST. He’s trying to reduce risks in the future. And the future has risks that are unlike the past.

If you want your president to solve only problems that have already happened in the past, we can ignore any potential climate change issues too. Human activity has never warmed the planet too much in the past, so why worry about it in the future? The point is that we try to stop problems before they happen, not after. Terrorism and climate change are similar in that one narrow way. They are both problems of the future, not the past. You can’t look to history to figure out how to solve either one of them. Dinosaurs didn’t drive cars and ISIS didn’t always have hobby-sized drones that can drop bombs.

On a related topic, President Obama and past leaders have gone out of their way to avoid labelling Islam as the problem behind terrorism. That makes sense on a rational level because only a tiny percentage of Muslims are terrorists. Obama wanted to avoid causing a religious war that pitted Christians against Muslims. So he avoided saying “radical Islamic terror,” for example. One could make a good case that Obama’s approach was the wisest path. It allowed us to stay on good relations with our Muslim allies and it probably depressed recruitment for the terrorists, at least a little bit. Smart, right?

Now we see Trump doing exactly the opposite. His words and actions seem to be intentionally mixing the Muslim “brand” with the terrorist “brand.” How does that make sense with the Persuasion Filter? I’ll tell you how.

President Obama’s approach was to give a free pass to Islam in general and to any Muslims that were just minding their own business. But the unintended consequence is that Muslims have less incentive to police their own ranks. Trump changed that. Now if you want to stay out of the fight against terrorism it will cost you.

So Trump has created a situation – or will soon – in which the peaceful Muslims will either have to do a lot more to help law enforcement find the terrorists in their midst or else live with an increasingly tainted brand. Trump is issuing no free passes for minding your own business. His model makes you part of the solution or part of the problem. No one gets to sit this one out.

I’m not smart enough to know whether President Obama or President Trump have the best strategy in this regard. But both strategies are rational.

MagentaYenta

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 4:36 pm

Squishy wrote:

You said it in your 3:17 post.

Nope it's not there. Quote it or fold.

WhatFor

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 4:39 pm

FranticFrummie wrote:

13yo DD is becoming very politically aware these days. She may not be in school, but she's keeping on top of social studies!

Today she asked me about the "Muslim Ban".

I told her, what if there were 100 people in a country, where you were sure that they were going to die if they stayed there - but there was a good chance that one of those 100 was a secret terrorist? Is it worth the risk?

What if you let those 100 people in, and one actually was a terrorist. The terrorist goes on and stages an attack. You've let in 99 people and saved their lives, but the terrorist killed 100 people in the attack. Was it worth it?

What if the terrorist killed 200 people?

What if some of the people killed were your friends or family? Still worth it?

Think again of the 99 innocent lives you've saved, on the chance that none of them would be terrorists. Think of the repercussions. It's the Devil's Arithmetic, in a nutshell.

I have no answers. There are no easy answers. I'm glad that I'm not in the position to have to make those kinds of choices, and literally decide who lives and who dies. All I can do, is daven to Hashem to guide the hearts and minds of our leaders, and pray for the safety of the innocent, no matter where they come from.

From a philosophical perspective, why is any individual more entitled to life, liberty, and happiness than another? Everyone should be equally entitled to ask the good things, right? What makes one person inherently more deserving then another?

If you think about it, from a philosophical perspective, the notion that you're entitled to more protection because you're born within a certain area is a bit arbitrary. Where you were born is a circumstance over which you had no control. You didn't do anything to merit being born in a country that was better situated to protect its people, or was less corrupt, or was more wealthy, etc. I don't consider myself an inherently better person for having been born somewhere. I was pushed out of a womb without any consultation as to the location of my birth.

We have this concept of statehood- that a group of people have a governing body, and its duty is to protect its citizens. In this concept, each state ensures its citizens have fundamental rights. States respect each other's sovereignty in this pursuit and (ideally) do not interfere. Statehood is efficient in a practical sense. It makes more sense that you have a duty to protect the people in an immediate area. And most people in Western countries have a natural sense that our government is duty bound to protect us.

However, what happens when a state fails its people, when there are a group of people who are stateless or unprotected? Whose duty, then, is it to protect those individuals?

After WW II, the world had to acknowledge that many countries failed miserably in protecting Jews from persecution when their state failed them. In 1948, the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which delineated the rights to which all people are entitled.

In 1951, the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees officially established the principle of non- refoulement, which prohibits returning a victim to their persecutor.

These agreements put some level of responsibility on individual States to protect people who were not of their own state.

That's some of the philosophy and a tiny bit of the basis of the international law underlying the laws we have today.

The 99 to 1 analogy is obviously not close to the US refugee resettlement program, by which refugees are vetted for years before being allowed to enter the US.

wondergirl

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 5:20 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

What I said was that Homeland Security was following Trumps orders as per the EO. They then later followed the courts orders to release everyone who they detained and were still in this country. (That is in NY at least).

You are citing cases in other states and as I said, the ruling by the (NY) judge was vague and did not clarify who it covered. Seems like there were other cases going on in other states so the ruling in NY would not be effective in those states as to not step on the toes of the judges in those states (I am not a lawyer so you would need to verify this with a lawyer). The judge in Virginia/Washington Dulles airport case seemed to have only given lawyers access to meet with detainees, but did not order them to be released. It is unclear how they knew that those two detainees from Yemen signed their rights away if the lawyers were barred from meeting them. The second article seems to say that all but 1 detainees still in the U.S were allowed into the country so not sure what to believe. Do you have any sources about this case that don't contradict each other?

bluebird

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 6:05 pm

I'm posting without reading the thread. I'm interested in addressing the first post, not debating. Smile

I agree that we need immigration reform in the US, but dislike how liberals, conservatives, and independents are making their arguments. Our policy needs to be based on data, knowledge, and the lessons we have learned from history. What I hear from all sides is mostly reactionary emotional arguments.

Your daughter would benefit by taking this as a research opportunity. Find articles, books, and textbooks that are academic, non-partisan, and (most important) published before 2014 or so when emotions and bias were playing a huge role as now. Good topics are what people thought of immigrants, facts from that same era and how they supported or proved false those opinions, how the US changed policy in response, and critical analyses of the effects of those policy changes. This is much more valuable learning than rereading the rehashed opinions and emotional, biased news reports published today.

I imagine you're limited in English-language material in Israel. If you have accounts with libraries in the US still you could use their online resources for research. Maybe there's a university library near you that's open to the public (I don't know how that works in EY).

This is a good way for your daughter to learn how to research her interests and branch out into considering information that's in opposition to existing beliefs. Regardless of the outcome on her opinions, those are valuable lessons.

Hatzlacha!

33055

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 6:23 pm

MagentaYenta wrote:

Nope it's not there. Quote it or fold.

Typical liberal - ignores facts and never admits mistakes. LOL

Alt facts below:

MagentaYenta wrote:

Instead we got a cloudly EO, that was ill defined and a president that ignores the highest court in the land.

FranticFrummie

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 6:26 pm

bluebird wrote:

I'm posting without reading the thread. I'm interested in addressing the first post, not debating. Smile

Thank you. I'm trying to raise a critical thinker, who will question non only authority, but also what she reads on Twitter and other social media. I encourage her to ask people to cite their sources, and to ask intelligent questions. I'm also raising her to know that it's OK not to have all the right answers. Sometimes it's more important to ask the right question, and it's always OK to say "I don't know, let me get back to you." Some questions are simply unanswerable, and she needs to learn how to deal with that, too.

I've already taught her how to use Google, and how to check sources to see what bias they are bringing to the table. Left, Right, and Center all need to be considered and weighed carefully. If she asks me what I think, I'll tell her, and I'll tell her why. If she comes to a different conclusion, that's OK too, as long as she can back it up and bring me the homework.

She also follows YouTubers who come from all across the spectrum, from Buzzfeed to Breitbart. Gay, straight, hipsters, gamers, conservatives, people of color, Libertarians, she devours information like crazy!

Just don't get on my case about the math in my post. Math is her worst subject. If I started throwing out graphs, demographics, geography, and statistics, she wouldn't be focusing on the moral implications - which was her main concern. She is extremely insistent that everything should be "fair", and she's realizing that the world does not work that way. Now she wants to know "why?"

sushilover

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 7:38 pm

WhatFor wrote:

Wow , what a loaded question.

IMHO, yes. The simple "luck" of being born in certain places does make me more entitled to something. Possession is nine tenths of law-no?
If I was born in a lovely home and inherited it through no work of my own, then I am not obligated to open my home to all homeless individuals in my town. It would be incredibly nice if I did. But you cannot say that I have an obligation to do so. Especially if I have reason to believe that some of those people may want to cause me harm.

What if those people are in clear danger and will be killed if I do not let them into my home? I still must make a cost benefit analysis and determine that my family will not come to any harm while helping the homeless people.

Remember:
1) ISIS has openly declared that it will use the refugee programs to smuggle their members into our countries.
2) Refugees may undergo a year long vetting process, but members of the government ,including FBI director Comey , have said that our vetting process is inadequate. It doesn't matter how long the process is if we simply don't have enough information about the refugees.
3) Even the moderates of many of the banned countries do not share our values and integrate poorly. (I'm talking about 90% of middle eastern Muslims viewing Jews unfavorably. 29% of Muslims in Afghanistan believe that suicide bombing is justified.) This can have terrible long lasting effects on our country.

Laiya

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 8:20 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

IMNSHO, the imperative is both.

But the US has done a dreadful job stabilizing anything.

Speaking of WWII, the US did a great job of stabilizing Germany and Japan afterwards. The US efforts were a success due to our constant military presence there for decades (and until today).

Unfortunately we left Iraq too soon.

But I agree that was a mistake, and our moral imperative is both--to help stabilize the region, and also grant political asylum to those who need it.

WhatFor

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 8:35 pm

sushilover wrote:

Can you explain the philosophy underlying your assertion that you are entitled to more on the basis of luck? I'm not sure what you mean by "possession is nine/tenths of law" and how that explains why someone is inherently entitled to something more at birth.

I'm not asking for statements of law or how things are. I'm looking for an answer that satisfies the "why".

ValleyMom

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 9:00 pm

There is no simple solution...

I will say this:
Our lives have been forever changed since all these acts of terrorism.

Now, when I go to the mall and I walk around in a crowd I always wonder- could this be the perfect moment for a bomb to go off?

Or I search faces to see who might look like a potential shooter.

Suffice it to say, I no longer enjoy strolling through the mall, or any crowded area- like Times Square.

It's very sad that I no longer feel completely at ease public places.

These thoughts never even entered my mind 10-15 years ago.

wondergirl

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 9:11 pm

Op, I think your daughter might appreciate this article-- http://www.dailywire.com/news/.....apiro

33055

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 9:45 pm

WhatFor wrote:

Communism doesn't work. You can't divide all the world's resources up on a per capita basis. Everyone suffers.There is the inevitable redistribution because there are people who are stronger, smarter, luckier, harder working, etc.

Maybe I am entitled to more because of decisions made by my ancestors. By the same token, I am entitled to provide for my descendents. If there were some reset button upon ones death, and people couldn't provide for their own families then they would be less productive.

Nations exist to protect valuable resources. People in my nation except for liberals don't want to divide the resources of 318,000,000 by 7,500,000,000. The rich liberals are not giving up their fortunes, and the immigrants who they are partnering with have their own selfish agenda.

The proof is the one third of Spanish immigrants who voted for Trump. Just like native born Americans, they want to protect what is theirs.

sushilover

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 9:45 pm

WhatFor wrote:

Taking religious philosophy out of the equation, almost everything in the world is determined by luck. My parents, my skills, my education, my health, my nationality could have theoretically all been different if not for my "luck" of being born in the exact circumstances I was born in.
If I was lucky enough to inherit a nice house, then my neighbor can't claim ownership just because I didn't work for it or 'deserve' it any way.

What I mean by possession is nine tenths, is that unless evidence is given that I got that house through illegal or underhand means, it is assumed that I am the rightful owner. I don't have to prove that I deserve it more than my neighbor. I may have lucked into the home, but it is still mine.

Unfair? Probably. Unjust? No.