[quote=“John_Mace, post:19, topic:791407”]
I’m confused. Afghanistan was never one of the countries on the “Travel Ban” list, was it? Is that what people are referring to as the issue that Trump created? What is the issue here?[/QUOTE
I believe you are correct, my mistake, but I’m confused because I don’t know what original problem is being referred to. I mistakenly thought it had to do with travel bans.
A team from The Gambia was also denied a visa. Did they get the Presidential treatment?
Trump’s ban is a lot broader than the administration is talking about. It’s a mix of total bans for some countries, temporary bans for others, cutting back on refugee quotas, increasing security vetting, and redefining nationality.
I think the Trump administration realized it screwed up by putting out a single broad policy that was easy to attack. So instead they’ve quietly put out a bunch of different policies that all put obstacles in the way of Muslims coming to America. The goal of keeping Muslims out remains the same but the means have shifted.
try explaining that to the christians.
Girls are from Afghanistan. The travel ban doesn’t affect Afghanistan.
Can you cite the changes to policy that the Trump administration promulgated with respect to Afghanistan that prevented the robotics team’s travel? (If that’s what you’re claiming)
OK, Trump did make one right decision…ONE…RIGHT…DECISION. I’ll congratulate him as soon as he reaches The “a stopped clock is right twice a day” levels of competence. I’ll even be generous and give him his whole one term as president to make two right decisions.
Pfft. It’s like praising a serial rapist for remembering to feed his fish.
I did not know that.
Wait, you think its been easy for Muslim country citizens to get a a visa for the US before? That they have been handed out like M&M’s? Since that is far from the case. It takes a lot of time & effort to do, requiring the clearing of several hurdles. And yes I speak from personal experience.
Trump is openly anti-Muslim yes, however the obstacles, and the refusals for any and all or no reason have existed/going on long before he ever became President.
For people for whom anecdote trumps data (pun accidental) - which is to say really ill informed people who don’t think things through - these sorts of stunts matter a great deal. That’s why narcissistic manipulative people pull them.
Cut funding to an entire segement of needy society using boring budget papers? Most people won’t notice; no photo opportunity, no story. Give a handout to a cute girl at a well organised photo op? You’re a hero.
Regardless of whether Afghanis were affected by the Trump ‘muslim ban’, why were these girls denied a visa in the first place?
Visa denial can happen for no apparent reason. The default position taken by the State Department is not that a visa should be granted. Rather the default is that a visa application should be denied and it is up to the applicant to show why it should be granted.
And since applicants are not entitled to a precise reason their application was denied it is not always clear why.
Mrs Iggy (Colombian citizen) was denied a tourist visa to join me (US citizen residing abroad) in visiting my family in the States for Christmas. The various “visa advisers” who play their trade said she should have said she was going to Disneyworld instead, since that is seen my the local visa personnel at the embassy as a proper destination. Orlando is ok. Atlanta is not.
Other anecdotal stories are of visa applications being rejected ostensibly because the applicant was leaving behind minor children so the applicant is presumed to really be seeking to illegally seek work to support the children back home. But if they apply to take all their minor children with them the visa is denied because now the applicant has nothing they have to return to their home country for. 
Awwwww, so adorably naive. :rolleyes:
Did you read the FY16 visa refusal statistics. 73% of Aghan Tourist and Business visa application are refused. Fact is, most Afghan visa applications are refused. Trump or no Trump.
[Checks forum]
And here I thought I’d come to IMHO to detox.
Whether or not Trump caused the situation, praising him for solving it is the political equivalent for praising him for putting his pants on the right way round all by himself. Any remotely competent pol would have done the same thing. Actually Obama probably wouldn’t have intervened because it would have already been handled by one of Clinton’s subordinates in the state department as soon as the story started trending, and so it wouldn’t have even reached his desk.
Its only news that Trump intervened is because it goes against his ban all Muslims rhetoric, and so the state department had no clear needs direction for what should be an obvious decision.
I didn’t claim it was easy to get a visa before Trump became President. But it’s certainly become more difficult since.
Ironically, the only people who thought it was easy were probably the people who voted for Trump based on this issue. My favorite was the woman who said she had voted for Trump because he would make the country safer by getting rid of all those dangerous illegal aliens. This woman’s husband was an illegal alien and she knew it. But she was still shocked when her husband was taken into custody and deported. Apparently she thought the Trump administration would make an exception for her family.
No, because actual terrorists who attacked us trained there, in their friendly terrorist training grounds. And what’s Trump supposed to do? Stick it to those guys?
There is no way to know if these girls would have been admitted into the country without Trump’s policies. But you are wrongif you think Trump is admitting fewer immigrants, especially from places without visa waiver programs and from places where connections to IS are stronger.
(FWIW, the Gambian team was also admitted, AK84.)
The problem is they go home and they teach people how to make killer robots.
I think the fear (and one which is IMO not unfounded) is that they would forget to go home at all, and disappear.
Richard Parker good to hear about the Gambians, any idea why the decision was reversed?