Day 9: Chaos and a small victory

Big new today on the executive order yesterday regarding immigration restrictions. If you want just one overview story of this news item, the Washington Post has a good overview of the day's events.

• Lots of stories today about people being stranded, such as those who were on flights when the order was signed, as well as people with dual citizenship and permanent residents (green card holders) being turned away from airports. A handful of people are in detention at airports, despite having legal documents for their entry. A lot of the stories are devastating. Lots of protests, especially at airports.
• I've just heard that a national stay against the immigration order has been granted from a federal court in NY, pending briefing of the case. Nobody who has been detained will be sent back, but unknown if people will be left in detention or not. Unclear if people with legal status in the US with the disputed nationalities will be permitted to board airplanes (but ACLU is hopeful).
• Update: Reuters reports that green card holders will be allowed back in after "additional routine screening". That is, more expense, more delays, and much, much more frustration.

This whole executive order is absolutely disgusting, and is creating chaos for no good reason. I work at MIT, and MIT students are being affected by this. The international office is sending emails to international students marked URGENT. This is completely chaotic, and affects businesses, universities, and many other entities in the US. This is incredibly unfair, especially to people who have legally obtained their documents (often at great personal cost). The whole thing is terrible. A number of people I talked to today wanted to burn their US passports. The anger is really palpable.

This stuff overshadowed basically all other news today. A few things I found:

• Putin and Trump had a chat.
• Three executive orders. The reshuffling of the national security council is cause for concern. Bannon has no business being on that council.