Fact Checker: Trump’s Refugee Policy Isn’t Really Like Obama’s Or Something

Glenn Kessler attempts to “fact check” a Trump statement, and highlights his partisanship and Trump Derangement Syndrome

Trump’s facile claim that his refugee policy is similar to Obama’s in 2011
There are several important differences between the two refugee policies.

“My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months.”
—President Trump, statement on executive order, Jan. 29, 2017

In justifying his controversial executive order halting travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries, President Trump claimed that President Barack Obama did the same thing in 2011. But the comparison is a bit facile.

Here’s what happened in 2011.

Here’s what really happened. The Credentialed Media didn’t bother to investigate the issue for years. There were no unhinged and apoplectic opinion pieces and editorials. They were good little lapdogs. But, the idea here is to try and paint the orders as totally different, and that the Iraqi one was totally different.

The only news report that we could find that referred to a six-month ban was a 2013 ABC News article that included this line: “As a result of the Kentucky case, the State Department stopped processing Iraq refugees for six months in 2011, federal officials told ABC News — even for many who had heroically helped U.S. forces as interpreters and intelligence assets.”

And that right there should put the Credentialed Media into a disgrace timeout. Before Kessler trotted out this “fact check,” he gave it a whirl on Twitter, and was beaten like a rented mule.

https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/825399784638971908

Boom.

Anyway, Kessler goes through his “argument”, leading up to

So what’s the difference with Trump’s action?

First, Obama responded to an actual threat — the discovery that two Iraqi refugees had been implicated in bomb-making in Iraq that had targeted U.S. troops. (Iraq, after all, had been a war zone.) Under congressional pressure, officials decided to reexamine all previous refugees and also impose new screening procedures, which led to a slowdown in processing new applications. Trump, by contrast, issued his executive order without any known triggering threat. (His staff has pointed to attacks unrelated to the countries named in his order.)

Apparently, Glenn is not familiar with all the goings on in Europe. All the rapes, sexual assaults, crimes, the spread of hardcore extremist Islam, etc and so on, along with several attacks and stopped attacks by the “refugees.”

Second, Obama did not announce there was a ban on visa applications. In fact, as seen in Napolitano’s answer to Collins, administration officials danced around that question. There was certainly a lot of news reporting that visa applications had been slowed to a trickle. But the Obama administration never said it was their policy to halt all applications. Even so, the delays did not go unnoticed, so there was a lot of critical news reporting at the time about the angst of Iraqis waiting for approval.

So, media incompetence is now a rationale to give Trump…..2 Pinocchios.

Third, Obama’s policy did not prevent all citizens of that country, including green-card holders, from traveling to the United States. Trump’s policy is much more sweeping, though officials have appeared to pull back from barring permanent U.S. residents.

That’s because it didn’t. Glenn should read the actual Executive Order.

And the media wonders why Trump won the election.

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31 Responses to “Fact Checker: Trump’s Refugee Policy Isn’t Really Like Obama’s Or Something”

  1. drowningpuppies says:

    Sooooo, are we ready for Donald Trump’s second week as President?

    I am!

    Woohoo!

  2. Dana says:

    President Obama set limit for Syrian refugees at something like 85,000. Former Secretary Clinton ran on increasing that number to something like 165,000. It seems as though the Democrats agree that the President can set a limit on the number of refugees being accepted into the United States.

    8 US Code §1182

    (f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President

    Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

    The left are simply angry that President Trump, exercising the same authority exercised by President Obama, and which former Secretary Clinton wished to exercise, has set the number of Syrian refugees not at 85,000 or 165,000, but at zero.

  3. Jeffery says:

    Somehow Obama’s policy didn’t cause global chaos and send millions of protestors into the street.

    No one has mentioned that president trump has supportive majorities in both the House and the Senate and could enact vetted policies as the founders intended with input from Congress. Why hasn’t he? Because that’s not how dictators operate. The Republican majorities in the House and Senate may very well have advised him to enact a thought-out policy rather than Steve Bannon’s cocaine fueled fantasies.

    At this pace Der Fuhrer will have more EOs in a year than FDR had in all his tenure!

    Why does he refuse to work with the Republican Congress?

  4. drowningpuppies says:

    Police arrest 2 muzzies who shot up a mosque in Quebec City, a day after PM Justin Trudeau condemns Trump’s temporary travel ban.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4170500/Five-dead-GUNMEN-open-fire-Mosque-Quebec-City.html

  5. drowningpuppies says:


    Somehow Obama’s policy didn’t cause global chaos and send millions of protestors into the street.

    Because the press didn’t report it.
    It’s called a double standard, dipshit.

  6. Rev.Hoagie® says:

    Somehow Obama’s policy didn’t cause global chaos and send millions of protestors into the street.

    I hate to point this out Jeffery, but very few people even knew of Obama’s policy and the news media did a great job of burying it. Besides, do you really, really believe anybody would have protested the Il Duce? You realize he bombed moslems to death in the middle east and not only did no one protest, the liar got the Nobel Peace Prize.

  7. david7134 says:

    Why should Trump expend political capital when he has a pen and a phone, just like Obama. If Obama could be a dictator, then Trump can as well. Thus, the liberals start a policy and when they can’t control it, then they start crying, just like Schumer (did he get acting lessons?)

  8. Rev.Hoagie® says:

    We have brought the enemy to tears. The wailing and gnashing of teeth can be heard as the cries of the defeated. If we were moslem we’d take their homes, rape their women and mount their heads on pikes. Like these….

    https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E3BzGPJG7Sg/WIgTqGO_txI/AAAAAAABFDA/4FQFxQpnzAQnfJ4MwrGGixhVGr_DSlvEACLcB/s1600/1ninetymileshG3rS1rhnukoo1_1280.jpg

    Yes, lets bring them here! And plant them in every leftists home. It will be a teaching moment.

  9. Jeffery says:

    The acting AG, Sally Yates, has refused to defend trumpy’s clunky EO. Will probably have a Monday Night Massacre… so long AG Yates.

    Five Federal courts have issued stays.

    trumpy is finding out how hard it is to be an unpopular dictator in a former democratic Republic.

    The hubris of this man is epic. Why didn’t he cooperate with his Congress to pass a law?

    #ImpeachTrumpy

    • drowningpuppies says:

      Yates is an Obama appointee and sycophant.
      She’ll be gone as soon as Sessions is confirmed.

  10. Jeffery says:

    Hoagie,

    Anybody who shows up at my house to do harm, whether a Muslim or a right winger, gets a chest full of 00 buck.

    #12G Remington870

  11. Jeffery says:

    The executive order, which blocks all immigrants and visa holders who are citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia, reinforces ISIS’ narrative, according to former jihadi Abu Abdullah.

    “It can play into their propaganda, to make it clear for anyone who could be in doubt, that it’s a war on Islam and all Muslims,” Abdullah told CNN over a messaging service. The names of the now-defected foreign fighters in this story have been changed to protect their identities.
    Another former jihadi said the wedge being driven between Muslims living in the West and their governments is exactly what ISIS wants.

    “[Trump’s] helped ISIS a lot, he’s basically being a tool for them in a way,” Abu Obaida, a British former Jabhat al-Nusra fighter in Syria, told CNN via direct message. “On social media right now there’s a lot of people quoting Anwar al-Awlaki (the late spokesperson for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) and his last speech when he said that America will turn on the Muslims.”

    Thanks POS-in-Chief. You should probably look up “humility” in the dicktionary, the dictionary for dicks.

    What a disaster president.

    • drowningpuppies says:

      Thought the tough talking shotgun wielding little guy wasn’t afraid of the jihadists.
      Abu and his buddies will be toast soon enough.

  12. Jeffery says:

    trumpy will fire her tonight and keep firing the next in line until he finds a sycophant to defend him against the suits. She has bigger balls than he does and he won’t be able to stand it.

    Senate Dems (and maybe some Repubs now) will slow walk Sessions, as they will now take a more serious look.

  13. jl says:

    Just saw a post that mentioned that Obama bombed 5 of the 7 countries that were on the “ban” list. Bombing and killing-ok. Temporary restrictions on traveling-Hitler. Liberals are hypocrites? Who knew?

  14. jl says:

    “Slow walk Sessions.” Liberals-vetting is bad, unless their Trump’s cabinet picks.

  15. Rev.Hoagie® says:

    Anybody who shows up at my house to do harm, whether a Muslim or a right winger, gets a chest full of 00 buck.

    Since it’s the left wingers here that seem to riot and destroy stuff are you willing to shoot a leftist? I’ve seen many riots and can’t recall seeing the Young Republicans burning cars and smashing windows.

    http://anodtothegods.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/tumblr_okgi1noUDC1vqa6rso1_500.jpg

  16. drowningpuppies says:

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said in November 2015 that it may be necessary to halt the program to resettle Syrian refugees in the United States, citing security concerns over terrorism.

    Now, Chuckie McWeepypants says it’s mean-spirited.

  17. Jeffery says:

    trumpy fired acting AG Sally Yates.

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