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Ask HN: Anything we can do for those impacted by the US immigration ban?

121 points by pjmorris ↗ HN
Just posted this on my FB wall, figured someone around here might have ideas.

r.e. recent immigration policy changes, practically speaking: Anybody here, or know someone, who's stuck in an airport/country they expected to leave today, and needs a sandwich/a ride/a place to stay/a friendly ear? Seems like we're going to need a network of care to look after the stranded.

89 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 176 ms ] thread
xapata
Call your local elected representatives. Frustratingly, that seems to be the best way of getting their attention remotely. Even better is to visit them.
nharada
And please actually CALL, do not email them
empath75
Go to the nearest airport and protest.

At this point, trying to help individuals is valuable and important, but it's still shuffling deck chairs on the titanic. We have to push trump out of office.

mordant
>We have to push trump out of office.

On what grounds? His immigration actions are well within the ambit of the law.

Just because you don't like him?

diminoten
I'm not sure that's the case, but the legality of a decision aside, there is a morality aspect that one may find reprehensible, and yes, if Trump violates your moral sensibilities, you would want to remove him from office because you don't "like" him.

As far as the legality, I believe that's being challenged in court as we speak.

bduerst
No, the order violates the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which banned all discrimination against immigrants on the basis of national origin and specifically overrules 8 U.S. Code § 1182.

What the United States President is doing right now is illegal and unconstitutional.

tptacek
No, they were not. The Immigration and Nationalization Act forbids discrimination on the basis of country of origin; even the notion that Trump can exercise executive authority to single out nations as threats was challenged, decades ago, and found false. Not only that, but they're denying lawful permanent residents at the border.

Trump won't be impeached for this, but with Bannon running the show --- he just replaced (literally) the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of National Intelligence on the NSC Principals Committee --- it's just a matter of time before he does something that leaves Congress with no choice.

TheSpiceIsLife
It's been mentioned a few times elsewhere that Obama banned Iraqis from entering for 6 months in 2011.

Do you know anything about that and it's legality? How does it differ from Trumps ban?

tptacek
Twice, I think, the Obama administration put a hold on refugee applications from Iraq. Trump's order blocks entry to the country to all people from Iraq and 6 other country, not just as refugees (who will reside here indefinitely) but for any reason at all, even if they are already lawful permanent residents of the US.

Anyone telling you that these are comparable actions has an agenda you should be suspicious of.

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gdulli
The thing about electing a reality TV personality with no impulse control or knowledge of law or government is that assuming he'll take only legal actions is dangerously, irresponsibly naive.
workerIbe
He said he was going to do this for a year, how is it impulsive?
mozumder
> Just because you don't like him?

As good as reason as any. Morals are a perfectly fine qualification on a person.

And is there anyone remaining that likes him?

fossuser
Im not sure that's the best approach.

I thought this perspective was pretty interesting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/posteverything/wp/201...

toothbrush
I just came here to say i read the WP article, and it sounds highly plausible. Unfortunately the actionable advice isn't a quick fix, but requires lasting social change. A tall order indeed. Godspeed to us over the coming years, i fear it's going to be rough.
pjmorris
I think there will be plenty who protest, and I respect them.

I think something along the lines of 'nonviolent insistence' needs to go along with the nonviolent resistance. By actually taking care of somebody left in the cold by USGov policy, we can show that the US people are made out of better stuff than might be thought if you only look at the actions of the government.

ChrisLTD
Join protests in your area if you can. We can't afford to merely hope that others do the work of being a citizen for us.
tptacek
Ordinarily I'd be skeptical, but in this case there are actual families being denied entry at our airports, and it's not at all crazy to believe that green-card-holders are being admitted in part because of surprising turnout to these protests.
ckarmann
I think only Congress can push Trump out of office before the end of his term. This will happen only if he gets extremely unpopular even with his base, or the Republicans will chicken out. Barring that, there are elections in two and four years.
ixtli
There appears to still be enough base support that they're too afraid to cross him. Today, however, i've seen CATO and some of the other traditionally conservative thinktanks turning against him so perhaps the tides are shifting. My theory is that he's trying to jam the most egregiously illegal things through first so that he can take a conciliatory tone later to keep people from fleeing, though by the looks of it the ACA repeal is a gigantic mess so I doubt this will pan out.
georgemcbay
I too used to be of the opinion that Trump's actions were calculated with an end-goal in mind, but I've started to believe he might actually be legitimately mentally unstable and/or naive enough to think being elected President makes him the "boss" of everyone. There are lots of reasons to suspect he really doesn't understand the scope of the job and such a misunderstanding would only be reinforced by the Republican Party's complete inaction on standing up to him.
nandemo
Wait, what? Cato Institute is libertarian not conservative; they're generally pro-immigration, pro-civil rights, etc. While I haven't been following them recently I'd be very much surprised if they ever supported Trump.
ixtli
While it is true that they are libertarian, a think tank would never "support" a candidate in that way. The reason I lump them in with the ideological right in america is that their thought has been precursor to legislation championed by the right.
nerfhammer
Conservative intellectuals never supported Trump.

It would be more encouraging if mouthpieces to the rank and file like Fox News or talk radio turned against him.

empath75
Democrats control the cities, which means they control the economy. If you shut down the economic activity in the cities, you can bring a lot of pressure to bear, regardless of how popular trump is with his 'base'.
rdtsc
Moreover they control most of the public-facing tech companies. Shut down Google search or Facebook for a week and it will have a bigger impact than shutting an airport down.

There are 0 Trump supporting search engines or Facebook equivalents.

anarazel
> There are 0 Trump supporting search engines or Facebook equivalents.

Given that I, a not very well networked person, know of people supporting Trump at both google and facebook, I'm afraid that that's wishful thinking. It's not a large percentage, but they're there.

But even if so, what'd be the way to use that fact? I don't think the way to deal with Trump is to go blow-by-blow with Trump (he'll drag you down to his level, and beat you with experience, and all that).

rdtsc
It was really just a crazy idea I had based on seeing calls to block airports blocks and seeing some tech CEOs come in support of immigrants and thought, what could they do really, and naturally thought --- well shut down their service...
georgemcbay
The greatest action a tech company could make that would really sting would be twitter shutting down his account. I don't expect they will do this, but ultimately they can shut down anyone's account for any reason and unsuitability of their platform for what he is using it for sounds like a good enough reason to me.

It is kind of insane to me that nobody in the general mainstream media is making a bigger deal out of the fact that the POTUS is generally signalling public policy and overall decision making via twitter (not exactly the securest of platforms) to both the media and apparently his own party. And he accesses this account over what is reportedly a completely unsecured Samsung Galaxy S3 (too old for security updates).

If his twitter account were hacked the results could be literally catastrophic in terms of the damage that might be caused to the subject of the tweet before it came to light that the tweet was not legitimate.

rdtsc
> The greatest action a tech company could make that would really sting would be twitter shutting down his account.

Shadow ban!

> If his twitter account were hacked the results could be literally catastrophic in terms of the damage that might be caused to the subject of the tweet before it came to light that the tweet was not legitimate.

Agree, wish there was more talk about that. That is scary. He distrusts the press, I can see why. But what are the procedures for him to deny quickly something that was posted there by a hacker. "Lol, launching nukes to China". What is the turn-around time for an urgent TV / radio address saying "oops someone guessed my password and trolled everyone" before China launches anything back.

adventured
It wouldn't be an urgent TV address, that would take far too long. There are direct lines of communication in multiple ways between the US and China, both at the political level and militarily. The White House would also issue an immediate release to the press, which would be global distributed essentially instantly.

Further, both China and Russia have the ability to detect that long range missiles are being hurled at them.

There are an awful lot of crazy notions being floated in this thread. The unnecessary hysteria is getting out of control. It's like the old Reagan days times ten (we were all supposed to be dead in the 1980s because Reagan was going to get us killed in a global nuclear war).

newmanships
Hmmm, that's an interesting thought exercise. I wonder what would happen in FB/Google blocked access in states that voted Trump, or in the future for states of X candidate but not Y and the impact that would have. What happens if they're blocked for a day, week, month, etc? Interesting.
rdtsc
Yeah it was just a crazy thought I had. Blocking a whole city is hard, takes coordination, blocking all the streets etc. Blocking Facebook is shutting off connections to a region.
adventured
Then the Federal Government takes temporary control of Google on the basis of national security. Employees are forced at gun point to perform their functions, on the basis of otherwise threatening national security. Some of this has already been tested out in political theory, during the time in which Ballmer floated the idea of moving Microsoft to Canada over the anti-trust ruling, and during the NSA vs tech company conflicts recently. The power structure in DC, that exists outside the bounds of Democrats / Republicans, would never allow such a threat to themselves and their power to persist. It would be quelled fast. You're talking about directly threatening the United States Military (the NSA gathers vast amounts of its data from such companies).
dragonsky
If you claim to still want to live in a democracy, this is a completely ridiculous suggestion. If you truely believe in democracy you have to regain power using the structures of democracy, not by employing the tactics of those you are fighting against.

The only way to effectively get change is to change the attitude and beliefs of those who support what you are fighting against. In this case, those Trump supporters. I'm sorry, but short of Trump doing something silly (likely I know) and him being impeached, you are stuck with him until the next election. You have until then to convince his supports that he is not the answer they were looking for. You also have to have a credible alternative who they can get behind.

People who populate Hacker News are almost by definition educated and analytical. They are people who are able to identify falsehood and participate in a logical discussion. They tend to believe that information is valuable and of a sense that "information should be free".

Please don't discard your values and call for censorship just because things are happening that you don't like.

Be yourselves, stand up and have calm and sensible discussions, present your facts, support your facts with evidence. Understand that overcoming the negative attitudes that have invaded our society will take time, but in the end, the truth always wins, even if those who have changed their view, may not ever admit that they have changed.

rdtsc
I should have mentioned that was mostly a thought experiment. Would I want them to do that, no. But I was wondering how many would want to do it? Maybe there are some rogue employees who wouldn't mind crashing an burning the system to "protest".

However, now that I think about it, this type of censorship has already happened. A while back on Reddit, the CEO himself modified a comment from a user from a Trump supporter. As in directly went into the database backend and switched the text blob there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/5ektpc/rthe...

I didn't follow what happened afterwards, don't think he was punished or fired or anything. Maybe someone else knows. Anyway just as I was saying it was theoretical what-if. I remembered that case. It is scary in way also because posts on the social sites could be used in a court cases as evidence. Makes one think...

> You have until then to convince his supports that he is not the answer they were looking for. You also have to have a credible alternative who they can get behind.

Good point. I think without self-analysis and reflection more than name-calling and blaming, we'll just have Trump for 8 years. And then another Trump and so on. If name calling and public smearing had worked, he wouldn't have even got off ground in the Republican primaries. Throwing more labels at Trump supporters over Twitter and Facebook will surely not be a winning strategy, because otherwise he would have been back in his tower by now, licking his wounds in defeat.

Another way of looking at him is as a symptom. Something was already happening in this country planted probably a decade ago, that lead the the conditions of him winning.

xiaoma
This is a horrible idea.

Any mayor who "shuts down economic activity" in their city is essentially holding their own constituents' well-being hostage and would only further polarize the country and further empower Trump to take extreme actions.

politician
That's... revolutionary. Literally. Shutting down the economic activity in our cities would be an act of rebellion that ought to trigger martial law.
mozumder
You don't shut down the city economies.

You boycott places that voted for Trump.

adventured
That's a crazy premise.

It's equivalent to saying: Republicans control most of the food grown in America. They can just starve the cities to death.

Or: Republicans control most of the energy producing states and corporations. They can just starve the cities of energy, including natural gas, coal (30% of all US power), and oil (Texas).

Or: most of the military is Republican. They control the nukes, they can just glass all the cities. Or start striking the cities with cruise missiles and artillery fire until they capitulate.

If you think starting a civil war is a good idea, you're in for a rude awakening about the vast carnage to follow.

[dead] thilmo
Move to Iraq yourself to keep them company, I guess.
nooron
I don't see any need for your derision towards the original poster, and I don't think low information, low effort comments like yours fit the decorum of hacker news.
diminoten
I see this comment as a statement about the helplessness of the average American citizen to stand up to their own government.
aclsid
I thought HN was not about politics according to the guidelines.
burkaman
This isn't political, it's just asking how to help people in trouble.
lukev
Everything is about politics. When this affects my co-workers, my neighbors, my friends, my church, this is political.

Tech isn't getting involved in politics. Politics got involved with real people.

ixtli
Technology without due consideration given to society is really, really dangerous. Hopefully this thread (which is actually quite excellent) will encourage some people to apply technology to issues of the day.
jMyles
The guidelines do not say that.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

Politics are completely on-topic here when (and only when) the story in question is relevant for some other reason. This is evidenced by the fact that many of the best stories, and best discussions, which lead to the best educational experiences for all of us, are first-and-foremost about a political issue.

Posting a scribe about your campaign to destroy party X because they wronged you in another life? Off-topic. A discussion about how we can help victims of capricious state violence? That's the main reason I come here.

shaunol
Was wondering the same thing.. come for tech news, get instantly put off by vocal users forcing US politics in the conversations. I thought the no politic rule would help with that.
dragonsky
Front page at the moment 30 stories, only one that concerns current US politics. I think you can avoid politics pretty easily.
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chrisper
There was an experiment with no politics for a week, but that got cancelled a while ago.
GabrielF00
If you work in tech or academia, you probably know many immigrants. This issue is just as important to the tech world as surveillance.
badtuple
There's alot of meatspace stuff suggested, but I'm an American that's overseas until April. Anything I can do to make an impact when I can't physically protest? I've made donations to the ACLU and CAIR and sent emails to my representatives, but willing to do more if there is something.
tyre
Call your representatives, don't email them. It is orders of magnitude more effective.
[dead] yeuei88
Here comes thrle libtards. I am an immigrant living in this great nation and very happy with his action and keeping his promise.
tptacek
ACLU apparently just won a nationwide stay of the executive order in NYC, so another thing you can do to help is to cue up the bit in the movie Ghostbusters where they pull up to Dana's building to take on Zuul and listen to the "Savin' The Day" montage music while you make a big ol' donation to the ACLU.

At least, that worked pretty well for me. I was going to go protest, but we apparently shut down ORD and now they're not even letting cars approach the airport.

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bound008
The ACLU just solved this in surprisingly quick speed with lawyers and money.

Give as much money as possible to the ACLU. On "Adam Ruins Everything" he explains that sometimes money is the most effective way to contribute to charity is money. (Try to balance your giving with the EFF as well).

tootie
I can only hope this case is so patently unconstitutional that it sails though and is quashed for good.
[dead] alextooter
You just need to support Trump.What he doing is right.

What you believe is wrong.

pavornyoh
Perhaps, you are forgetting his grandfather was an immigrant himself from the kingdom of Bavaria. If his grandfather was not let in, he wouldn't be Potus today.
[dead] alextooter
No,his grandfather is not from those country,that's different.And I find many of your guys are brainwashed by the liberal media and education system,lost the ability to think independently.
pavornyoh
I like to learn new things. Please tell me where his grandfather is from then if you don't mind. Also, just because one disagrees does not mean I [ WE] have been brainwashed by the liberal media as you stated. That is judgmental and for you to just accept the actions of one without foreseeing the consequences in the future is what I'd categorize as not thinking deeply and independently but rather in the moment.

Apart from banning people from these countries, have you thought about its effects on the U.S military people stationed in these countries trying to work and protect the United States? Or does that not matter?

benbreen
My wife is an Iranian green card holder who was going to leave the country for a conference she's organizing next month (ironically, on human rights) so we're directly impacted by this. Aside from what others have said, can I just recommend that people who want to do something write short, empathetic notes to friends or acquaintances who might be effected? My wife was in tears all this morning, and when one of our friends wrote simply to say "You're welcome in this country, this doesn't reflect our values, and I'm here for you if you need me" it helped a lot.
wfunction
Just wanted to let you know about a couple positive pieces of breaking news:

- http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-admi...

- https://www.aclu.org/news/federal-court-grants-stay-challeng...

It's up to her whether she wants to risk it obviously (personally I'd be hesitant), but being able to get back in with a green card as of this writing is not out of the question, because I'm aware that it has actually happened today. (If it changes 5 minutes from now don't kill me...)

benbreen
Yeah, we're monitoring this pretty closely and have already gone back and forth on it twice. The complicating factor is that I was supposed to join her and we'd meet up with her family beforehand (who I've never met because they live in Iran and haven't been able to get US visas). I think the plan, as of right now, is to still go, but I'm going to change my original plans to allow us to cross the border back into the country together too. If a problem arises, I'm going to do everything I can to get the ACLU on it and publicize it, and hopefully that pressure from a US citizen will be enough.
tyre
Also note that the Republic of Iran has said that it will likely put into effect a reciprocal ban, meaning you won't be allowed into Iran.
benbreen
Yeah, I just learned of that a few hours ago. Not surprised though, I was assuming they'd reciprocate and I honestly can't blame them in this case. The visit is/was going to be in continental Europe, which seems like as good a middle ground as any these days.
wfunction
In that case, I think (I am NOT a lawyer and this is just my personal opinion): If both of you travel together, then it will be much easier for them to deny you both entry than if one of you is inside, since they don't have to also justify forcefully separating a husband and wife from each other. But if you can make a case that your wife/family is here and that e.g. you have a mouth to feed, by denying you entry they're also increasing the country's liabilities and burdens.

Tread carefully. I would not go back if I were you. And don't miss the other comment regarding the news on Iran's end.

benbreen
I'm a native-born US citizen though - surely we're not in such a bad state as a country that I could be denied entry just for being married to someone from their list of scary countries...?
wfunction
I think I missed that you were a citizen when I wrote that comment, never mind!
tyre
That stay does not mean green card holders are protected. It means that anyone who was in transit when the order went into effect was allowed entry.

So if you were on a plane to the US before the order, but landed after it, and were detained with the threat of being sent back, you can stay.

It does _not_ mean that visa holders, including those with green cards, can travel back to the US in the next 90.

nerfhammer
You're welcome in this country, this doesn't reflect our values, and I'm here for you if you need me.
tajen
Maybe we should help them immigrate in a truely developed and free country, build a tech hub over there and start building up the counter-power that will take over the world's regulations in the XXIst century. I'm being sarcastic against the situation, but at one point we need to recognize the US law enforcement has been a huge failure for the last 30 years, with programs as crazy as the TSA, the no-fly list, the NSA, the Civil Asset Forfeiture, with results as crazy as 1% people in jail, a sustained failure to integrate black people (with 6% of them in jail), a ratio of 95% in jail on plea deal (which means they haven't been proven guilty), people being tagged as secual predators for life for peeing against a tree, SWAT teams using military gear to attack video game players or kill puppies.

And that's just on the law enforcement side on US soil. Let's not name drones doing executions without due trial or outright lying about WMD in Irak ar the UN.

Without denying that the remaining 90% of USA is awesome, USA being that way is not new, we've known for years that we don't know how to democratically react to that, but it's now the pace of those decisions which is accelerating.

Maybe we need to create a new ideal of where we want to go, and start drafting a type of constitution that the XXII century will aspire to: A democracy which would be resilient to terrorism and militarization of state.

du_bing
Interesting idea of tech hub
tajen
Australia would be a great place to start, since they have capacity for twice the population and developed infrastructure, but they're not immune to political decisions either.
[dead] hj88
>>Name:Ben

>>>Wife:Iranian citizen

Here comes the cuck.

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