More than 3000 Americans killed (in America) by terrorists from countries where Trump has business interests. Zero from the “evil seven”.

This is looking more and more like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.  I don’t expect them to get things exactly right—this is the US government we are talking about—but 3000 deaths at the hands of terrorists from the countries we ignore and zero from the countries we singled out?

Last month when I flew back to Boston, I waited in 4 lines at Logan Airport.  First, a line for using passport machines that were supposed to “save time” (but don’t.) Then a much longer line for passport control.  Then a shorter line at customs, and then another long line for a taxi (due to the government’s taxi cartel.)  While waiting, I had plenty of time to think about how lucky I was that we didn’t need permission from the US government to leave the country, just enter.  So Americans still have a tiny bit of freedom left.

Not much longer:

The Trump administration executive order on immigration has most widely been reported to temporarily ban visas for people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — even for those who have been living in the U.S. in valid employment or student status but who need new visas for re-entry.

What’s getting less attention is section 7 of the order that demands immigration controls when you leave the U.S. not just when you arrive.

Just imagine how pleasant the travel experience at America’s state of the art international airports will be once this goes through:

Trump can insist on this by executive order because the law already allows for it and has for 21 years. It hasn’t happened largely because of how expensive and impractical it is.

Most cost estimates (suggesting under a billion dollars) involve the acquisition of biometric scanners and additional federal staffing, but not the physical renovation of every international airport that would be necessary.

Right now there’s no structural channel that travelers are forced to go through. Passengers would have to be forcibly routed through departure immigration. There would have to be a physical separation between domestic and international flights.

One way to do this would be to require what are effectively separate domestic and international piers, in some cases passengers might have to depart security and re-enter the airport. In other cases there might be an immigration transfer check between piers. So there’s construction costs and staffing costs, and it would increase the hassle and time necessary at the airport including increasing minimum connection times between flights — a tax on airlines.

The Obama administration was working on a similar plan . . . with a goal of implementing nationwide in airports by 2020.

Lovely.  Remind me why we were going to build all this “infrastructure”?  Was it to make our lives more enjoyable, or to provide more space for sadistic jerks at the INS, TSA and other federal agencies that like to harass us?

PS.  They tell us to get there 2 hours early on international flights.  What will it be when this goes through?


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31 Responses to “More than 3000 Americans killed (in America) by terrorists from countries where Trump has business interests. Zero from the “evil seven”.”

  1. Gravatar of Jim Glass Jim Glass
    29. January 2017 at 15:14

    For fans of prediction markets:

    https://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-gb/betting/politics/american/specials/donald-trump-specials/222881036/

    http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politics/other-politics/us-politics?ev_oc_grp_ids=2657726

  2. Gravatar of Scott Freelander Scott Freelander
    29. January 2017 at 15:38

    Yes, I didn’t favor building the DHS in the first place. Abolish it, and privatize airport operations, including security and air traffic control, entirely.

  3. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    29. January 2017 at 16:21

    Jim, Wow, I’d actually bet on him serving the full 4 years.

    Scott, Agreed.

  4. Gravatar of dtoh dtoh
    29. January 2017 at 16:32

    Scott,
    I’m not a fan of CBP. They are one of the most incompetent departments in the government (which is saying a lot.) IMHO, they are able attract staff mainly because they have the lowest IQ requirement for a job where you get to carry a weapon.

    That said….virtually every country in the world has inbound AND outbound immigration controls and every major airport outside of the U.S. is designed to handle that. One of the reasons we have the current immigration debate is because the U.S. government didn’t figure this out 50 years ago….unlike every other country on the planet. (And BTW – I have over 500 stamps in my passport so I kind of know what I’m talking about.)

    U.S. citizens do NOT need permission enter or leave the country. The Supreme Court already adjudicated on this. Immigration agents are only allowed to ask questions to ascertain if someone is actually an American citizen.

  5. Gravatar of Major-Freedom Major-Freedom
    29. January 2017 at 17:15

    Sumner is spreading fake news

    Sumner was silent when Obama imposed  6 month ban on immigration from Iraq in 2011.

    Sumner was silent when e DHS under Obama placed the 7 countries in question on an enhanced VISA and vetting process that denied and/or slowed immigrants on from those countries.

    Trump imposes a ban of immigration on the 7 countries the DHS selected years ago, and Sumner loses his mind.

    THIS BLOG IS FAKE NEWS/b>

  6. Gravatar of dtoh dtoh
    29. January 2017 at 17:53

    Scott,

    And… the title of the post has little to do with your actual post… and with due respect the title makes you sound like a leftist nut case. Why undermine your arguments with this kind of stuff?

  7. Gravatar of Major-Freedom Major-Freedom
    29. January 2017 at 18:07

    I bet $100 that Sumner did not even bother to READ the executive order.  Actually, I bet $1,000.

    Here is the full text:

    http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=122529

    According to the FAKE NEWS reports, the order bars all people hailing from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.” These outlets complain that these seven countries are included but not other states “linked to his sprawling business empire.” Bloomberg and Forbes bought into this.  Sumner is willfully brainwashing himself with it.

    Go ahead and CTRL-F any one of the “evil 7 countries” in the text of the order at the link above.  Guess what you will find?  With the exception of Syria, THEY ARE NOT EVEN MENTIONED.  

    Where did this list of “7 evil countries” originate?  As I mentioned in my previous comment, they come from the DHS under Obama.

    Sumner is totally clueless about the information war currently being waged on a massive scale. He is out to lunch.

  8. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    29. January 2017 at 18:31

    I wonder about Trump’s sense of PR, except he got elected P{resident doing everything I would advise against, so…..

    But Trump could legitimately say, “It is not a Muslim ban. We are not banning residents from Saudi Arabia or Indonesia, for example, nor residents from India, many of whom are Muslim. It is a ban of residents from nations we fear will export terrorists.”

    That would be somewhat a lie, but pretty good PR. As Sumner points out, it is has been Saudi Arabia that exports money and people that foment terrorism.

    But as I have said, Trump seems to enjoy being a Velcro man. He remains the most enigmatic figure in the White House since Nixon, or maybe Reagan….

  9. Gravatar of P A P A
    29. January 2017 at 19:17

    It shouldn’t be a surprise that Trump doesn’t have investments in countries engulfed in civil war (Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Iraq) or countries sanctioned by the US (Iran). Correlation does not imply causation. I don’t support the executive order, BTW.

  10. Gravatar of RM RM
    29. January 2017 at 19:21

    Terrorist deaths seem rather beside the point. It may be more appropriate to worry about “institutional contagion.” The seven selected countries make much more sense this way.

  11. Gravatar of Jim Glass Jim Glass
    29. January 2017 at 19:51

    Jim, Wow, I’d actually bet on him serving the full 4 years.

    Well you can, right there.

    OTOH, Mike Pence is no Spiro Agnew. And Trump was a Democrat until he decided to run for president, openly pro-abortion, etc., with the majority of his campaign contributions until then going to the likes of Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Charles Rangel, Chuck Schumer, Edward Kennedy, Ed Rendell, Rahm Emanuel for his run for Chicago Mayor, $100,000 to the Democratic Senate and House campaign committees, $125,000 to the NYS Democratic Senate campaign committee, etc.

    (As Trump explained to Sean Hannity in 2011, “Everyone’s Democratic. So what am I going to do — contribute to Republicans? One thing: I’m not stupid. Am I going to contribute to Republicans for my whole life when they get heat when they run against some Democrat and the most they can get is 1 percent of the vote?”)

    Now just *imagine* that Trump somehow screws up in his public actions so the genuinely conservative rank-and-file Repubs get the notion that he is going to hurt them at the polls in 2018 … and *imagine* that many of the genuine conservative higher-up in the party remain vexed at how he personally insulted them (McCain, Cruz, Rubio, the rest) *and also* become genuinely worried about T’s policies such as replacing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Director of National Intelligence on the National Security Council with the head of Breitbart News … and now just try to *imagine* that the Democrats start an impeachment movement against the Trumpster (see Clinton, Nixon).

    In that case, if you were a genuinely conservative maybe even Evangelical Republican, who would you prefer have as president? Pence or Trump?

    Now, I’m not saying Trump will be impeached. But *if he is*, he is going to be the easiest president to kick out of office ever, by far. The conservative Republicans owe him nothing, zip, nada — over the last 10 years they put together the 30-state majority he rode into office while he was supporting Democrats, and they know it. They’ll be get a genuine, real conservative Republican in his place courtesy of the Democrats. End of gridlock! (Nixon had real roots in the party and look what happened to him when it chose not to defend him. Trump has zero roots.)

    Just saying, those odds are interesting but not nonsensical.

  12. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    29. January 2017 at 19:57

    The good news is Trump picked such a contentious issue in barring Muslims that he’s wasting political capital early in his crucial first 100 days (a term borrowed from FDR’s first term).

    The bad news is: …can you say rectal exam? (Sumner): “PS. They tell us to get there 2 hours early on international flights. What will it be when this goes through?”

  13. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    29. January 2017 at 19:59

    dtoh, You said:

    “U.S. citizens do NOT need permission enter or leave the country. The Supreme Court already adjudicated on this. Immigration agents are only allowed to ask questions to ascertain if someone is actually an American citizen.”

    That’s good to hear, but why should non-American citizens need permission to leave? What is the purpose of this action, which will make travel an even bigger hassle than it already is? Why not just let people quietly leave, with no fuss?

    You said:

    “and with due respect the title makes you sound like a leftist nut case.”

    Why does it make me sound left wing? Do you think the truth has a liberal bias (like Krugman claims?) Isn’t my title factually correct?

    I’m actually a very reasonable, moderate person who thinks both Trump and Sanders are appalling extremists. I like boring moderates like Jeb!, or Kaine. The nutcases are the people that support Sanders, and the people who support Trump. It’s not my problem that a huge number of Americans have been taken in by a pathetically laughable conman like Trump. If you cast Trump in a Hollywood movie the reviewers would complain he’s too much the stereotypical demagogue to be believable. He needs at least one non-demagogic characteristic to seem human. He’s like a cartoon character.

    PA, I agree it’s no surprise that Trump has no investments in those countries, but don’t you think it is a surprise that the travel restrictions do not apply to the countries where most of our actual terrorist threat comes from ? Places like Saudi Arabia? Or Pakistan?

    RM, You said:

    “Terrorist deaths seem rather beside the point.”

    That’s news to me, and probably to most other Americans.

  14. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    29. January 2017 at 20:02

    Jim, The choice of Bannon for the NSC blew my mind. There’s so much insanity coming one after another that I can hardly keep up.

    It’ can’t possibly go on for 4 years like this, can it? But I still think he’ll calm down, rather than get impeached.

  15. Gravatar of dtoh dtoh
    29. January 2017 at 20:35

    Scott,
    You’re missing the whole point. The reason for outbound immigration is not to give permission to people to leave, it’s to identify who has overstayed their entry permission, which then enables enforcement. Otherwise it’s impossible because if you have no idea who has left than there is no way to know if someone is still in the country (and has overstayed their entry permission). Really… was that a serious question. I get it that CBP/INS (unlike every other country in world) never figured this out because they’re a bunch of nincompoops…. but you’re a reasonably smart guy.

    Your title IS factually correct, but it is deliberately misleading because it implies that Trump’s business interests has some impact on his immigration policy (if not there would be no reason to mention it.) This is exactly the kind of mendacity that got Trump elected. If you believe that Trump’s business interest influence his immigration policy, say it. If you have evidence, state the evidence. Or do you believe correlation implies causality.

  16. Gravatar of P A P A
    29. January 2017 at 20:52

    “PA, I agree it’s no surprise that Trump has no investments in those countries, but don’t you think it is a surprise that the travel restrictions do not apply to the countries where most of our actual terrorist threat comes from ? Places like Saudi Arabia? Or Pakistan?”

    I believe the reason is that the intelligence services of those countries are generally cooperative with the US, which also explains why the Obama DHS did not exclude them from the Visa Waiver Program. I don’t think the policy is wise, but it’s not explained by Trump’s business interests.

  17. Gravatar of Steve Steve
    29. January 2017 at 22:41

    The betting odds on Trump impeachment are funny. Brought to you by the Brits who bet heavily on Bremain and Hillary. Heck, one of them even paid out for Hillary.

    I think the problem is those exchanges are full of drunkard inveterate gambling urbanites from Canary Wharf. Nobody can arbitrage them. Plus, as a US player you’d have to accept legal, currency, and counterparty risk to sink a big chunk betting Trump doesn’t get impeached, and even then they might pay out on impeachment prematurely. Risk premium says the likely outcome must be discounted.

    That said, the “term structure of Trump impeachment” seems just about right. I think it happens sooner or not at all. Basically take their odds of impeachment, slice off 30-40%, and you’ve got a good prediction. Arbitrage it at your own risk, though: I wouldn’t.

  18. Gravatar of Steve Steve
    29. January 2017 at 22:47

    “They tell us to get there 2 hours early on international flights. What will it be when this goes through?”

    Maybe you should vacation domestically instead. I hear they have nice antique stores in DeForest, and you could visit Harding on the way home.

  19. Gravatar of Postkey Postkey
    30. January 2017 at 01:08

    Here is someone who has done some ‘in depth’ research?

    “1. Author claims that the Obama administration previously listed the same seven countries as posing “special risk,” citing H.R. 2029 as evidence when, in reality, H.R. 2029 only lists Iraq and Syria. More importantly, the Obama Administration didn’t write the 2016 appropriations bill, nor this one tiny section buried somewhere within the thousands of pages of the bill. Congress wrote it;
    2. Mysteriously, the U.S. Customs & Border Protection website page that lists these seven countries did not do so as recently as last April. At that point, only Iraq, Syria, Iran and Sudan were listed. It appears someone changed it since then;
    3. Author cites quote from conservative blogger Seth J. Frantzman, who cites H.R. 158 as additional evidence that the Obama Administration had previously discriminated against these seven countries in question. Like H.R. 2029, H.R. 158 was written by Congress, not the Obama Administration. Further, also like H.R. 2029, it only mentions Iraq and Syria. Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Lybia and Yemen are not mentioned within at any point;
    4 . . . ” etc

    http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/01/most-claims-about-trumps-visa-executive-order-are-false-or-misleading/#comments

  20. Gravatar of Postkey Postkey
    30. January 2017 at 01:17

    “I like boring moderates like Jeb!, or Kaine.”

    And I presume you liked the boring ‘moderate’ warmonger G.W.Bush?

  21. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    30. January 2017 at 01:58

    I find this widespread narrative and argumentation dangerous because it more or less implies that Trump banned the “wrong” countries.

    What happens if Trump would actually agree with this? This could totally backfire and simply lead Trump into banning more countries.

  22. Gravatar of Lorenzo from Oz Lorenzo from Oz
    30. January 2017 at 03:04

    Actually, for 9/11 Osama wanted to use mainly Yemenis, but they kept being knocked back by US consular officials, so al Qaeda ended up mainly using Saudis and Emiratis instead (since they could get visas).

    It’s a bit chicken and egg: stable countries are places worth investing in, so if you exclude stable countries then …

  23. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    30. January 2017 at 07:51

    dtoh, OK, I accept your explanation, although I still oppose the policy.

    PA. The intelligence service of Pakistan is cooperative with the US, but Iraq’s is not? That’s not at all what I read in the papers, more likely the reverse.

    Steve, You said:

    “Maybe you should vacation domestically instead.”

    My international flights are not “vacations”. Do you think I’d vacation in the UK for 3 days in December? Maybe the US government should leave me alone.

    Postkey, I liked W much better than Trump. But no, I did not like him in an absolute sense (nor do I like Jeb! or Kaine in an absolute sense.)

    Lorenzo, That sounds sort of like the Lucas Critique.

  24. Gravatar of sean sean
    30. January 2017 at 11:18

    Scott,

    I don’t expect Trump to calm down over time. This is consistantly his personality.

    I do think some of his positives outweigh his negatives versus HRC.

    Taxes/FDA appointments I view as more important than travel visa and trade restrictions. Big risks is a geopolitical blunder. The one positive we have with Trump is other countries should be more cautious if they expect Trump to be unpredictable. I think Saddam didn’t think Iraq would really get invaded. If he though invasion was likely or possible he may have cooperated and prevented war.

  25. Gravatar of P A P A
    30. January 2017 at 13:53

    “PA. The intelligence service of Pakistan is cooperative with the US, but Iraq’s is not? That’s not at all what I read in the papers, more likely the reverse.”

    The case for Iraq is probably the presence of ISIS. Again, I’m NOT defending the wisdom of the order. Merely challenging the assertion that it’s driven by Trump’s business interests.

  26. Gravatar of Postkey Postkey
    30. January 2017 at 14:18

    “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

  27. Gravatar of Viking Viking
    30. January 2017 at 16:21

    Exit control would be the first step in behaving like a civilized country with respect to international transit passengers. Why should they have to clear customs, as USA is not their destination? That is also an example of free trade and travel, allowing people to pass through without wasting resources on harassing them.

  28. Gravatar of dtoh dtoh
    30. January 2017 at 20:23

    @Viking
    +1

  29. Gravatar of dtoh dtoh
    30. January 2017 at 20:24

    @Scott

    If the immigration/customs lines bother you, you can get a Global Entry card. Then no more lines ever.

  30. Gravatar of Jacob Aaron Geller Jacob Aaron Geller
    30. January 2017 at 21:13

    This would fit right into Michael Huemer’s “Irrationality of Politics” talk, in the terrorism section.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JYL5VUe5NQ

  31. Gravatar of لاتاری لاتاری
    18. May 2017 at 11:20

    We are still waiting for Mr. Trump’s comment and modification of order.

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