Judge suggests Mike Pence’s Syrian refugee ban rooted in religious bias

[rug]

By Stephanie Wang | September 16, 2016

INDIANAPOLIS — “Wait, wait,” Judge Frank H. Easterbrook said, taking a tone of dry incredulity. “The governor of Indiana knows more about the status of Syrian refugees than the U.S. State Department does?”

On Wednesday (Sept. 14), a panel of three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit lashed into Ind. Gov. Mike Pence’s attempted ban of Syrian refugees resettling in the state.

Ind. Solicitor General Thomas Fisher explained that Pence was concerned that the U.S. cannot properly screen Syrian refugees for potential terrorist threats, based on a statement from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That’s why the Pence administration said he tried to cut off resettlement agencies from state grants, which flow through the federal refugee program, for refugees coming to the state from Syria.

The state was challenging an injunction by federal judge Tanya Walton Pratt, which blocked Pence’s order and deemed it unconstitutional discrimination. The state is being sued by Exodus Refugee Immigration, which has resettled more than 130 Syrian refugees in Indiana this year despite Pence’s directive.

http://religionnews.com/2016/09/16/judge-suggests-mike-pences-syrian-refugee-ban-rooted-in-religious-bias/

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/15/most-heated-exchanges-us-appeals-court-judges-indiana-syrian-refugee-ban/90417880/

[Thinkingabout]

1. Pence is playing the GOP hate game. Here's a guy who wants to promote hisx

Religious beliefs but yet is running for VP in a country which has religious freedom as one of basis rights. How can he provide protection of our rights of he issued orders to infringe on others rights.

[rug]

2. "Oh, honestly, you are so out of it"

Posner's having none of it.

[Igel]

4. Rights are for citizens.

We routinely discriminate against non-citizens. They can't vote. They can't receive certain benefits. We discriminate on the basis of ethnic origin, to this day, with immigration quotas. We deny them due process--if you've got certain skills, you jump to the head of the immigration list. We investigate bedroom activities before granting green cards and citizenship to those immigrants who are married. We deport non-citizens. No, they don't always have the same right to legal representation. We can use our army against other countries; we can't use the US army in the US (posse comitatus and all that). Etc.

We the People of the United States have the Constitution for the United States, i.e., for Us the People of the United States. Outside the us, they're "Them the People of other than the United States." I'd note that very seldom was I, when abroad, afforded all the same rights as Them the People of Britain when in Britain, Them the People of the Czech Republic when in the Czech Republic, etc. This didn't strike me as strange. I suppose it might strike somebody somewhere as strange, but I'd suspect either they are self-medicated or should be medicated.

The speech at the Democratic National Convention blurred this, and strongly implied that Constitutional protections apply to those we allow to immigrate prior to immigration. People were so partisan in trumpeting how well they knew the Constitution and how little Those We Dislike know it that they showed they didn't really know the Constitution. IMO, this bit of inaccuracy is worse than many other Constitutional errors that get spewed: It's one thing to get wrong the application of some provision, it's another to misconstrue the very purpose and nature of the document.

[Motley13]

3. Pence was asked who he most wanted to be like

Cheney!!!!! God help us if these two get elected

[Jim__]

5. For the record, the FBI did not say they could not properly screen Syrian refugees.

They said they can't guarantee there is no risk.

From politifact:

"Could I certify to there being no risk associated with an individual?" he said. "The bureau doesn't take positions on legislation, and we don't get involved in policy decisions. But that practically would be impossible."

...

For the record, the United States can vet the refugees through a process that involves the FBI as well as the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and other agencies. The vetting process can take up to two years, in which refugees undergo several rounds of security clearance checks.

Comey has stressed, in testimony before several different congressional committees, that there are challenges (namely, information gaps) to how we screen the refugees, and that there’s no risk-free process. But, he said, we’ve gotten "dramatically" better at the task in the past few years.

He never said that the federal agencies "cannot vet" refugees in as plain of terms as Cruz suggested. (Later in the debate, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made a similar claim as Cruz about Comey’s remarks.)

[rug]

6. That's a huuuuuuge difference.

They couldn't tell the truth if it was crawling up their legs.