How does one vet someone from a country with practically no records?
Pretty much everyone is missing this key facet.
For one, I would urge everyone to go to the State Department website and actually read the description of the "vetting" process for legal immigration to the U.S. Also, go find testimonials and biopics of refugees own experience going through this process.
As it stands today, the current protocol for identifying, vetting, and permitting a refugee from Syria or Muslim immigrant from any of these countries is as good as it can be. Part of this is due to the fact that most of these countries lack even a fraction of the data infrastructure that countries like Saudi Arabia possesses so there's no easy way to simply search criminal records or known affiliates. All of this has to be done by ferocious and meticulous groundwork including multiple rounds of interviews and on-the-ground background checks of their families and closest circles. Even after they have cleared these hurdles the foreign-based immigration portals then refer the names and information to the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Counterterrorism Center, and the FBI for further checking. With all of that power, you are going to tell me that we can't find one liver of reason to think someone is a terrorist but we are still going to block them from escaping literal hell?
Someone else has mentioned it, but all this was a show of power to his constituents that he will do what he said he was going to do. I can all but assure you that no changes will be made to the vetting process after this temporary "ban" (and I put that in quotations because Trump himself called it a ban) but pro-Trumpers will say he got stuff done. Right.
All in all here are two things that are the most outwardly idiotic things regarding this EO:
1) It is now widely known that the EO was crafted and put in place by Trump's inner circle of Bannon, Miller, and Kelly. Cite whatever articles you want, but the DHS, State Department, and OLC were not in on this EO and that violates every protocol in place. Trump's inner circle are very green at how the bureaucratic process works and they are going to have to conform to it.
2) The exclusion of Saudi Arabia alone from this EO is a clear indication of how Trump and his administration view the Arab world. Saudi Arabia sponsors and supports just as much radical Islamic terrorism as Iran or any other country. But, because they are the oil kings we don't dare upset the balance with them. Saudi Arabia is the most violating oligarchy in the world and incur some of the most severe human rights abuses. However, they sit on the UN human rights watch - what a f*cking joke.
On a personal note, I am the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. At age 11, my grandpa watched the Nazi SS lock his family in their house and burn it to the ground. The only survivors were he and his brother (for which I am the namesake). For 3 years, they hid out in the woods of Poland and joined the resistance. Pre-teens spent day in night in fear for their lives but worked to undo the evil that followed them. They ambushed patrols and blew up railcars. Finally, after my namesake's death, my grandpa had a chance to come to America to join some of his family who had made it here before the war. He went through Ellis Island, he went through a sponsorship program, he went to school, he served in the Marines, and he became both a lawyer and CPA. Today, he has 5 children and 13 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren - something he never could have imagined he would live to see. When he immigrated to the U.S., there was no vetting process outside of a medical exam. He could have just a likely been a German or Russian spy. But America has never turned away those who are in need and he found a happy and full life after horror. Today, we have the tools to vet, we have the tools to ensure the safety of our own citizens. Who is Donald Trump to deny safe haven and prosperous life to those who are in a similar situation as my grandfather was?
