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Boston lawyers at Logan open new front: Demand airlines let people with visas from those seven countries fly to Boston

Although a number of federal judges, including in Boston, have ordered the government to let people with previously issued visas or green cards come to the US, several airlines are still refusing to let them board flights. Open Boston is their effort to put pressure on the airlines to let the people fly here.

UPDATE: Lufthansa will provide passage:

Due to a decision (Temporary Restraint Order) by the District Court in Massachusetts, the above mentioned Order is suspended on flights to BOS for the time being until February 5th, 2017. All passengers with valid travel documents are eligible to board on LH-flights to BOS.


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Comments

President Trump, and I'm not a fan, has every legal and constitutional right to do what he did. Other presidents, Democrat and Republican alike, have likewise issued similar presidential directives. President Obama personally decided who was going to b assassinated with drones.

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Americans have every legal and constitutional right to fight the measures - and to try to convince a judge that even the president still has to follow the constitution and federal laws, like the ones that prohibit religious tests in government actions or the ones that sure seem to indicate you can't just rescind previously issued visas the way it was done last week.

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Islam is not mentioned in President Trump's Executive Order on travel restrictions, so mention of a "religious test" is laughable. In fact, using the list generated by President Obama, Trump is only temporarily limiting 13% of the Muslim population. It was nice of Obama to leave the list for Trump. Teamwork!

BTW, ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It seems prudent to limit travel from there and the five other dysfunctional countries on the list. Any U.S. police officer will tell you that it's hard enough here, in the cradle of technology, to confirm the identity of people intent on deceiving, so when dealing with seven countries using pencil and paper, no database, and free access to fake passports and visas, Trump's decision is a good start.

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Fish, never one to disappoint, tries to perpetuate more right wing myths.

Trump clearly stated, when signing the EO, Christian minorities in the subject countries, would be given priority. Not my opinion, he said it "live" and the record is there. That statement, by itself, sets a religious criteria. Similarly, the 1965 law also prohibits discrimination on the basis of "country of origin."

You have also grossly misrepresented the intent and purpose of the so-called Obama list.

Sweeping generalizations, hyperbole and misrepresentations do not make for compelling arguments.

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The execution of this EO was so badly bungled that Karl Rove is laughing and calling this "amateur hour." When you've lost Karl Rove, it's time to go home.

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They lost Karl Rove year ago. That guy is all about preserving his political consulting business.

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The ban has been rescinded for some.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2017/02/attorneys_will_f...

FTA, "Government attorneys will argue today that a Boston judge’s injunction halting President Trump’s ban on travelers from seven majority Muslim nations should not be extended, because it is no longer relevant.
In a motion filed yesterday in Boston’s federal court, the government argued that the temporary restraining order issued over the weekend is no longer needed, since the White House dropped those with green cards from the ban. The ban still applies to refugees and other nonresident travelers."

The TRO covers 'approved refugees, and other individuals...'

So, we shall see. Green cards are already 'green-lighted' so to speak. 'Approved refugees' is not the same as 'refugees' I think. 'Other non-resident travelers' covers who, exactly? Anyone at all?

Is the court overreaching a bit in the ban?

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In their minds, anyone else who doesn't have a Green Card or US passport. All of them (except for some of the dual citizens from Visa Waiver countries) have approved visas to come to the US.

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Heaven forbid we have another one - I'm sure people like you with your enormous guns will protect us!

Can't have those constitutions git innaway of our irrational fears!

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Something you should have learned in school

Consider this as well: if Congress has made a law and it has been enacted, a president can't just decide to make or change existing laws by decree. A president doesn't have that authority. Congress has to change that law or parts of the law need to be nullified by judicial review.

See also: The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which directly forbids what Trump just did. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/trumps-...

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Where was your righteous outrage about Executive Orders and lack of congressional involvement when Obama "decreed" DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Action_for_Childhood_Arrivals

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There was plenty of outrage when he signed DACA:

http://www.widman-immigrationlaw.com/Immigration-Blog/2015/January/Repub...

It mostly came from the folks who opposed the action in the first place.

Somehow, approving it didn't leave families and Green Card holders stranded in airports around the world.

And DACA certainly went through plenty of court challenges, just like the current EO is now.

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I think the point is that BO issued his own fair share of "decrees" in eight years, dressed up as Executive Orders. And not surprisingly, Swirls had no problem with two full Obama terms of them.

But when Trump "governs" in the same fashion... All of a sudden she is a strict constructionist. Can't have it both ways, dear snowflake. This isn't a Newton soccer game.

The whole concept of Executive Orders stinks, and belongs in a Banana Republic rather than a constitutional republic. I don't care which side is in power at the time.

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One was confronted by a legislative branch (at least after the first two years) that was willing to shut down the entire government if the president said the sky was blue, the other wasn't.

One issued executive orders that did not, on the whole, raise fundamental constitutional issues, and when they did, and the courts ruled against him, actually obeyed the court rulings.

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Liberty U

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a fan either, but stating that doesn't make supporting one of the most destructive policies of our time, ok either...

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to issue an executive order..

he (well Steve Bannon), does not have the right to issue an unconstitutional executive order without it being challenged and rejected.

thats all there is to it.

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And the DHS cannot (well, "should not" in a real checks & balances system) simply ignore court orders.
That is the scary part - the break down of checks and balances. Getting rid of dissenting individuals. Testing the boundaries of how far various departments will go to side with the president. Government is not about loyalty and one-party rule. It should be terrifying to everyone to realize that a single-party is in power, whether that be Republicans or Democrats. Although it's more terrifying that the party in power is going backwards and allowing water sources to be poisoned, the finance industry to go back to rip off its customers, and so on.

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Not sure which is scarier: government agents simply ignoring court orders because they don't feel like following them, or the criminalizing of dissent. Either's bad enough by itself; together, it's a real one-two punch.

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Regardless of where you stand on allowing illegal aliens and refugees into the country, it has to boggle the mind of even the most hardened liberal as to why the city wants to fight so hard to keep illegals who commit crimes in our nation. We have enough of a hard time dealing with the criminals and drug addicts who were born here. Why are we fighting to take on more? This was a question I had long before Donald Trump ever announced he would run for president.

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Even aside from the question of whether a person can be illegal or not, the people affected by the executive order are people who HAD AMERICAN VISAS AND GREEN CARDS. They were approved by the US government to come or return here.

But since you bring up crimes committed by, as you call them, illegal aliens, your're wrong there as well. Boston Police and all the other police departments around here have worked quite well and hard with the feds to go after MS-13 members and other murdering scum. I could get into the whole community-policing thing, but the way you frame it suggests you're unwilling to listen to those facts, so no real reason for me to repeat the arguments that have been made here repeatedly. If I'm wrong, I apologize, and I (or people who are better versed into it) can explain to you why sanctuary-type stuff actually means safer communities.

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Ummmm, cause they're not "illegal" you can't get in a plane without a visa.
They have been vetted already and probably pose less of a threat than many gun-toting Americans.

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Here - Have some facts.

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I have been wondering all this week whether much more could have been accomplished a more nuanced approach. Say Trump had gone on TV, after all the media loves him and announced that by EO as of the announcement all non-citizen and non-PR arrivals from a number of countries would undergo additional arrival processing including review of social media accounts, additional interviews etc. due to the lack of complete biometric and other databases from their countries. And that such measures would continue for a reasonable review period of 90 days.

The country would be safer, there'd be grumbling, likely protests and possible lawsuits but much more substance, far less flash and perhaps more security.

This current iteration is after all security theater which makes it so very fitting that it occurs at the airport along with the rest of the ongoing dog & pony show of shoe screening, liquid screening and show-me-some-ID.

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Karl Rove wrote an interesting article in the WSJ that explained how the best way to do it would have been. He could have stopped future refugees from getting visas and installed higher levels of vetting for immigrants from these countries.

Surprising everyone with this on a Friday night with legal immigrants already en route (and not issuing clear guidance for over a day) guaranteed a harsh reaction and lots of stories of LEGAL immigrants done wrong.

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Research by governmental agencies as well as academia have repeatedly confirmed two truths about the relationship between immigration and crime: immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of violent crime and property crime.

Between 1990 and 2013, the foreign-born share of the U.S. population grew from 7.9 percent to 13.1 percent and the number of unauthorized immigrants more than tripled from 3.5 million to 11.2 million.

During the same period, FBI data indicate that the violent crime rate declined 48 percent—which included falling rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder. Likewise, the property crime rate fell 41 percent, including declining rates of motor vehicle theft, larceny/robbery, and burglary. 

According to an original analysis of data from the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) roughly 1.6 percent of immigrant males age 18-39 are incarcerated, compared to 3.3 percent of the native-born. This disparity in incarceration rates has existed for decades, as evidenced by data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 decennial censuses. In each of those years, the incarceration rates of the native-born were anywhere from two to five times higher than that of immigrants.

The 2010 Census data reveals that incarceration rates among the young, less-educated Mexican, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan men who make up the bulk of the unauthorized population are significantly lower than the incarceration rate among native-born young men without a high-school diploma.

In 2010, less-educated native-born men age 18-39 had an incarceration rate of 10.7 percent—more than triple the 2.8 percent rate among foreign-born Mexican men, and five times greater than the 1.7 percent rate among foreign-born Salvadoran and Guatemalan men.

Similar studies have found that immigrants are less likely than the native-born to engage in either violent or nonviolent “antisocial” behaviors; that immigrants are less likely than the native-born to be repeat offenders among “high risk” adolescents; and that immigrant youth who were students in U.S. middle and high schools in the mid-1990s and are now young adults have among the lowest delinquency rates of all young people. 

The fact is, politicians traffic in fears and prejudices about what they imagine immigrants to be. As a result, far too many immigration policies are drafted on the basis of stereotypes rather than substance.

These laws are criminalizing an ever broadening swath of the immigrant population by applying a double standard when it comes to the consequences for criminal behavior. Immigrants who experience even the slightest brush with the criminal justice system, such as being convicted of a misdemeanor, can find themselves subject to detention for an undetermined period, after which they are expelled from the country and barred from returning.

In other words, for years the government has been redefining what it means to be a “criminal alien,” using increasingly stringent definitions and standards of “criminality” that do not apply to U.S. citizens.

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They've set up a web presence, but it's super minimal, and is mostly focusing on direct action via social media--no links to "Who we are" or "Support us." As far as I can tell, though, this group is staffed by actual lawyers who are actually hanging out in Terminal E waiting to rain hellfire on airlines who violate the judicial order. Does anyone know if they're taking donations to bolster the effort? I'm not a lawyer, and I don't have a Twitter account with enough juice to make any difference, but I'd like to support these guys.

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If you know, please post - I'd head out to Terminal E with coffee, donuts, cash, whatever.

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If the other airlines (BA, TK, QR, EK, AF/KL) got on board with this, they could stand to make an extra $50,000 per flight. Money talks.

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...of profiting from others' misfortune.

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But I'd like to see more airlines obey the court ruling and allow passengers from the 7 affected countries to board flights to BOS.

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quite depressing

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also don't allow certain nationalities or religious denominations into their country.
I don't hear anybody mentioning this. It's a fact. No BS. Do your homework.

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Does that mean we should do that, too?

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Good thing we never had a Civil War in the United States.

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...we learned so much from it.

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ever chastise you for complaining, "Well Jimmy's parent's let them do it!"

We are not them.

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building a literal wall to block out our neighbors, discriminating based on religions, comic book-esque despots

one doesnt excuse the other but we arent really all that different!

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International students and professors who had been denied entry into the United States last weekend due to President Trump’s travel ban began returning on Friday afternoon to Logan International Airport, where they were met by a crowd of well-wishers after making it through customs.

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