Restrictions on Travelers

The impositions placed by Trump’s administration on travelers arriving  from seven admittedly pretty rough places  have been controversial except in one respect. Almost everyone seems to agree the thing was bungled operationally.  At one time it seemed the order would require people with green cards to be held up until investigated in depth. Then it seemed  they would be subject only to a more vigorous than typical  “screening”  at their time of arrival. Lately it appears travelers with green cards who had been eligible  for fast processing under the Global Entry program will able to use it as before.  However this sorts out, the important question to ask is why people with permanent legal status in this country were to be treated any differently from citizens in this regard. People with green cards have legal permission to live in this country permanently, something which surely implies a right to come back home  after a trip overseas.  

It is probably true that some risky or dangerous people were given green cards or issued visas by officials in Obama’s administration who were less concerned with security than other objectives.  However those cards and visas were issued legally.  Those in the new administration should have honored them and only changed policies on  issuing  green cards and issuing or renewing visas in the future if they desired.   

The attacks on September 11^th, 2001 were horrible, but the harm they did to this nation  is smaller than that from  the self-inflicted wounds of years of futile and pointless wars in the Middle East. Similarly the crimes committed in America by  jihadists since that time are less damaging to this country than the expansion of  the powers and reach of governments in the name of homeland security and the costs, the loss of liberty and privacy, and the simple burdensome inconvenience we have experienced because of it. That is something Trump seems more likely to make worse than better.