This is longer than usual but I think the facts need to be stated:
A non-immigrant visa issued at a U.S. embassy or consulate does not guarantee entry into the United States. The customs and immigration control officials at the point of entry have the right to refuse entry to anyone on their own authority and at the direction of higher authority. That is, President Trump acted within his legal authority in signing the ban, at least for non-immigrants. In view of the challenges brought to federal courts, it will be up to the judiciary to decide whether the terms of the ban violate the Constitution, perhaps under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Refugees have been thoroughly investigated before they receive permission to travel here. (Even people applying for non-immigrant visas, say to sight see or do business in the U.S., must convince the visa-issuing consular office that they are not criminals, terrorists, or likely to stay in the U.S. beyond the number of days their visa allows. All visa applicants have their names checked for criminal and/or terrorist connections before they can obtain a visa.) In the case of refugees, first the United Nations High Commission for Refugees investigates their claim to be a refugee; if the United States government then agrees to consider their application for refuge here, a number of federal agencies--including the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the intelligence agencies and the Department of State--investigate the refugee. Anytime new information about the refugee comes to light, the process restarts in order to confirm and evaluate the new information. The process takes a minimum of one to two years, including the U.N. Investigation, but it can take much longer.
That is another truth about refugees: each individual or family must have institutional and individual sponsors to help them resettle in the United States. Many religious groups, churches, mosques and synagogues, sponsor refugees. They are not simply released into our society to drift with random currents.
The border wall will be prohibitively expensive and no wall will stop people determined to get here. Somewhere between twenty-five to forty percent of undocumented immigrants, moreover, are people who arrived here with valid visas and then overstayed their visa for any number of reasons, including lack of awareness that they needed to change the type of visa they used to enter.
Historically, waves of immigration produced waves of innovation and growth in the United States. Alexander Graham Bell, Enrico Fermi, Nicola Tesla were all immigrants; Thomas Edison, Tesla's rival, was the son of an immigrant. The list goes on. Chinese, German and Irish immigrants built the transcontinental railroad, which opened vast lands to settlement and development, to the detriment of the only true Native Americans. Unless you are a full-blooded Native American, you are an immigrant or the descendant of immigrants.
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