Thread: Dems told changes to Trump refugee order unlikely

Dems told changes to Trump refugee order unlikely

01/31/17 07:40 PM EST



Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly during a Tuesday night meeting with lawmakers indicated the administration is unlikely to make changes to President Trump’e executive order temporarily blocking refugees and visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said the meeting left many questions unanswered, but one message was clear: the administration intends to stand by its order.

That, she said, is a mistake.

“The executive order needs tweaking,” she said.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said the meeting did nothing to assuage his concerns.

“Countless members of the professional staff at [the National Security Council] had raised concerns about what this might do to America's standing in the world, … [and] similar types of concerns were raised by professional State Department staff,” he said. “Clearly there were no changes made.”

Rep. Eliot Engel (N.Y.), senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, left the meeting voicing similar frustrations.

“I appreciated the meeting with him, but I disagree with this executive order tremendously, and there was nothing that was said that changes my mind,” Engel said.

Kelly demonstrated "that he's a class act," Engel added, but “he's got to defend policy that I think is indefensible. And that's a hard thing to do.”

Republicans, while largely supportive of Trump's orders, had some concerns of their own after meeting with Kelly.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he still has lingering questions about the ban, which churned countless headlines over the weekend as hundreds of travelers were stranded at airports around the globe and protestors marched in cities nationwide.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said he pressed Kelly on the administration's decision to leave Congress almost completely in the dark ahead of the Friday's release of the executive order.

“I don't know if it's by law or by just to be nice to the legislative branch, but there's always consultation,” he said.

Grassley said he was largely pleased with the response, but he's looking for improvement.

“My judgment is that there's been a lot of problems that they have corrected or are in the process of correcting,” he said.

“But not enough people know that, and they could have better communication.”

Members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee will be briefed again by DHS officials Wednesday morning, McCaskill said.

The administration has made one change to the order. It initially barred permanent residents from returning to the United States if they were coming from one of the seven nations: Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen.






http://thehill.com/homenews/house/31...order-unlikely

“Countless members of the professional staff at [the National Security Council] had raised concerns about what this might do to America's standing in the world, … [and] similar types of concerns were raised by professional State Department staff,” he said. “Clearly there were no changes made.”

Our standing in the world is as low as it's ever been in our history on the wings of the greatest immigration influx in our history. So when countries think you're an idiot for letting people into your nation you can't sustain without starving a citizen, allowing foreign countries to raid your industrial base on the scam of free trade treason, and then beating your chest like a caged gorilla expecting this to be the road to mutual respect, it's time for change, a new direction, a different course, a better way and no mode knows that way better than the:

TRUMP TRAIN!!

You want "standing in the world"? Then you put your citizens first, you honor your fiduciary obligation to them, you defend them, you protect them and you serve them. That's how you get "standing in the world", by representing the best interests of your own citizens.