odinsblog:micdotcom:No, Obama didn’t ban Iraqi refugees in 2011 In a statement Sunday, Trump def
odinsblog: micdotcom: No, Obama didn’t ban Iraqi refugees in 2011 In a statement Sunday, Trump defended his executive order targeting Muslim immigrants and refugees by saying that his policy is “similar to what [former] President (Barack Obama) did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.” Like so much of what Trump says, this is false: the Obama administration did not ban refugees from Iraq for six months in 2011. In May 2011, two Iraqis in Kentucky were arrested on terrorism charges after admitting to having attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The FBI suggested at the time that “dozens” of terrorists may have entered the U.S. posing as refugees, leading the Obama administration to “re-examine the records of 58,000 Iraqis who had been settled in the United States.” It “imposed new, more extensive background checks on Iraqi refugees,” according to the Washington Post. This significantly slowed the admissions process, the Post reports, but did not amount to a “ban,” as Trump described it. Iraqi refugees were still being admitted to the U.S., albeit at a more sluggish pace. Additionally, Obama’s review applied only to Iraqi’s applying for Special Immigrant Visas – which help those who have assisted the U.S. in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan – and not to virtually all immigrants from seven countries, as Trump’s does. Further, the Obama review came in response to a specific threat; Trump has not offered information demonstrating a need for his ban. Read more Shorter version: His supporters are wrong and Trump is lying. Again. There was never a Muslim ban under PBO. -- source link