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Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Trump and the Afghan Girls

Afghan teenagers from the Afghanistan Robotic House take pictures at Herat International Airport before embarking for the United States. (Hoshang Hashim/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
This group of girls wanted to attend a robotics competition in the USA, but were denied visas until the Donald intervened. One side of the aisle praises Trump for intervening with the State Department on the girls' behalf, the other side blames him for promoting an anti-muslim attitude. I suspect the State Department of being a rigid, rule-following bureaucracy, but I suppose that is what you want in a Federal Agency. You don't want people making arbitrary and capricious decisions that may later come back to bite us.
The State Department dismissed the girls’ visa requests at least twice, according to media reports, though, citing privacy laws, it did not spell out its reasons. One common reason Afghans are rejected for U.S. entry is the concern that they will overstay their visas and refuse to go back home.
The president became aware of the case and asked officials at the National Security Council to see what they could do. After those officials talked to counterparts at various agencies, the Department of Homeland Security agreed to allow the girls in on a system known as “parole,” which will allow them to stay in the United States for 10 days, though technically not on visas. - Politico

2 comments:

The Institute said...

Credit where credit is due: Don T. gets a point for this one.

Chuck Pergiel said...

We are supposed to be getting some exceptionally hot weather this week. I blame the Donald.