Court upholds suspension of Trump's travel ban

Federal appellate judges on Thursday upheld an injunction issued by a lower court blocking President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily barring residents of seven mainly Muslim countries from entering the United States.

A three-judge panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rejected the Trump administration's motion to reinstate the Jan. 27 executive order.

Trump's order mandated a temporary pause in admission of refugees, a 90-day prohibition on entry by residents of Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen, and an indefinite suspension of admission of Syrian refugees.

The appellate judges concluded that the order should remain in abeyance pending a final court ruling on its legality.

The president immediately took to Twitter to announce his intention to appeal Thursday's decision.

"SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!," Trump tweeted on his personal account.

The administration can ask for a review of the panel's decision by the full 9th Circuit, or it can seek intervention by the US Supreme Court, which is still one short of its normal complement of nine members, creating the possibility of a 4-4 deadlock.

A tie in the Supreme Court would allow the appellate ruling to stand.

The 9th Circuit panel declined to overturn the restraining order issued last Friday by a federal district judge in Seattle, James Robart, acting on a motion from the attorney general of Washington state.

Judges Michelle T. Friedland, William C. Canby Jr., and Richard R. Clifton said the Trump administration failed to demonstrate that suspension of the executive order posed a threat to national security.

The administration says that the executive order was meant to provide time to develop a procedure for "extreme vetting" of Muslims seeking to enter the United States, something Trump proposed during the presidential campaign after his initial call for an outright Muslim ban drew criticism from across the political spectrum.

Roughly 1,000 State Department career employees have signed a memo denouncing the executive order.

The Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Washington, has pointed out that since at least 1975, no terrorist attacks have been carried out on US soil by nationals of the seven nations affected by the visa suspension.

Source: EFE

U.S. tech firms file legal brief opposing Trump's immigration ban

Several technology giants, including Apple, Google and Microsoft, banded together on Sunday to file a legal brief opposing President Donald Trump's temporary immigration ban, arguing that it "inflicts significant harm on American business."

The brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, included other top tech firms including Facebook, Twitter and Intel, as well as non-tech companies such as Levi Strauss and Chobani. In all nearly 100 firms, including eBay, Netflix and Uber signed onto the brief.

Trump's temporary immigration ban, the most contentious policy move of his first two weeks in offices, faces crucial legal hurdles.

His administration has a deadline on Monday to justify the executive order temporarily barring immigrants from seven mostly Muslim countries and the entry of refugees, after a federal judge in Seattle blocked it with a temporary restraining order on Friday.

"The Order represents a significant departure from the principles of fairness and predictability that have governed the immigration system of the United States for more than fifty years," the brief stated.

"The Order inflicts significant harm on American business, innovation, and growth as a result," it added.

"Immigrants or their children founded more than 200 of the companies on the Fortune 500 list."

U.S. tech firms have been among the more vocal sectors speaking out against the policy, with many of its staff made up of foreign-born nationals.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco over the weekend denied the Trump administration's request for an immediate stay of the federal judge's temporary restraining order that blocked nationwide the implementation of key parts of the travel ban.

But the court said it would reconsider the government's request after receiving more information.

Source: Reuters

African Union: US, same country that took slaves, now banning our refugees

A top African Union official on Monday denounced the United States' recent travel ban affecting seven Muslim-majority countries, saying that the same country that once took African slaves by the million was now denying entry to refugees from the continent.

Chairperson of the AU Commission Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said that the ban decreed by US President Donald Trump was one of the greatest challenges to Africa's unity and solidarity.

Source: EFE

Silicon Valley puts money and muscle into fighting Trump immigrant curbs

Silicon Valley took the lead over the weekend in corporate resistance to President Donald Trump's clampdown on immigration, financing legal opposition, criticizing the plan, as well as helping employees ensnared by his executive order.

In an industry that has long depended on immigrants and celebrated their contributions - as well as championing liberal causes such as gay rights - there was little initial consensus on exactly how to respond to Trump's move on Friday.

But, while most in the tech industry stopped short of directly criticizing the new Republican president, they went much further than their counterparts in other sectors, who were mostly silent over the weekend. Most of the major U.S. banks and auto companies, for example, declined to comment in response to Reuters inquiries.

Trump ordered a temporary ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries and a 120-day halt to refugee resettlement. The action triggered a global backlash, and sowed confusion and anger after immigrants, refugees and visitors were kept off flights and left stranded in airports.

Bigger companies such as Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Google (GOOGL.O) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) offered legal aid to employees affected by the order, according to letters sent to staff. Several Silicon Valley executives donated to legal efforts to support immigrants facing the ban.

And Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk and Uber head Travis Kalanick both said on Twitter that they would take industry concerns about immigration to Trump’s business advisory council, where they serve.

Kalanick has faced opposition on social media for agreeing to be part of the advisory group. Kalanick in a Facebook post on Sunday called the immigration ban "wrong and unjust" and said that Uber would create a $3 million fund to help drivers with immigration issues.

 Among those affected by the ban was Khash Sajadi, the British-Iranian chief executive of San Francisco-based tech company Cloud 66, who was stuck in London. Like many tech workers, he holds an H1B visa, which enables foreigners with special expertise to work for U.S. companies.

Sajadi said he hoped big tech companies such as Google and Facebook would take legal action to protect affected employees. That could help set a precedent for people in similar situations - but at smaller companies.

"Ultimately, I think them simply speaking up is not going to move the needle with people" who are not wealthy and do not live on the East or West Coasts, he said.

'TECH AGAINST TRUMP' PROTEST

The response from tech companies has been “as forceful as it possibly can be,” said Eric Talley, a corporate law professor at Columbia Law School.

“One of the difficult aspects of reaction to the Trump administration in its first couple of weeks is trying to balance the interest of expressing legitimate concern ... against the potential cost of being out too far ahead of everyone else,” he said.

The tech industry also has other issues where it may find itself opposed to Trump, including trade policy and cyber security.

The president of Mountain View, California-based startup incubator Y Combinator, Sam Altman, wrote a widely read blog post urging tech leaders to band together against the immigration order. He said he has spoken with a variety of people about organizing but remains unsure about the best course of action.

“The honest answer is we don’t know yet,” he said. “We are talking with legal groups and tech groups, but this is so unprecedented that I don’t think anyone has a manual.”

At Lyft, co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green pledged on the company’s blog to donate a million dollars over the next four years to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which won a temporary stay of part of Trump's executive order on Saturday night.

Slack collaboration service co-founder Stewart Butterfield and Union Square Ventures partners Albert Wenger and Fred Wilson promised to match contributions to the ACLU.

Michael Dearing, founder of venture capital firm Harrison Metal, started an effort called Project ELLIS, short for Entrepreneurs' Liberty Link in Silicon Valley, to help startups and smaller tech companies with immigration issues. "ELLIS" is a also a reference to New York Harbor's Ellis Island, where millions of immigrants arrived.

In less than a day, the group has handled two cases, he said.

Dearing said the idea was to "get people in touch quickly with the ... resources they would have access to if they were in a Google or an Apple or a Microsoft.”

Dave McClure, the founding partner of 500 Startups and an outspoken critic of Trump, said his venture capital firm will soon open its first fund in the Middle East and will shift its attention to supporting entrepreneurs in their native countries, if bringing them to the United States proves impossible.

“Investing in entrepreneurs in other countries is probably one of the best things we can do to promote international awareness and understanding,” he said.

Rank-and-file employees were already prodding executives to go further over the weekend.

Shortly after learning of Trump’s order, Brad Taylor, a 37-year-old engineer for web analytics firm Optimizely, began organizing “Tech Against Trump,” a protest scheduled to take place on March 14.

In addition to holding a rally in Palo Alto, California, organizers of the event were urging tech workers at companies that have remained silent on Trump to walk out of their offices.

Taylor said he was heartened by tech leaders’ statements over the weekend but wants to see the industry go further.

“The purpose of this is not to be against tech, but to urge them to be on the right side of history,” he said.

Source: Reuters

Starbucks CEO Schultz plans to hire 10,000 refugees after Trump banS

Starbucks Corp Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz said on Sunday that the company planned to hire 10,000 refugees over five years in 75 countries, two days after U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order banning refugees from certain countries.

Trump on Friday put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily barred travelers from Syria and six other Muslim-majority countries, saying the moves would help protect Americans from terrorist attacks.

The order sparked widespread international criticism, outrage from civil rights activists and legal challenges.

Starbucks in a letter from Schultz told employees it would do everything possible to support affected workers. (bit.ly/2kIFjLE)

The hiring efforts announced on Sunday would start in the United States by initially focusing on individuals who have served with U.S. troops as interpreters and support personnel in the various countries where the military has asked for such support, Schultz said.

Schultz has been outspoken on various issues and has put Starbucks in the national spotlight, asking customers not to bring guns into stores and urging conversations on race relations.

Schultz said on Sunday that if the Affordable Care Act is repealed and employees lose healthcare coverage, they would be able to return to health insurance through Starbucks.

Trump and a Republican-controlled legislature are seeking to undo much of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

Schultz will step down as CEO in a few months to focus on new high-end coffee shops, handing the top job to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Johnson, a long-time technology executive. He will become executive chairman in April.

Schultz also affirmed the company's commitment to trade with Mexico, another subject that has been front and center of Trump's campaign.

Source: Reuters

Paris refugee camp home to 1,000 dismantled by authorities

A refugee camp in Paris with a population of over 1,000 was dismantled by French authorities on Friday.

The evacuation took place without incidents and the immigrants primarily from Afghanistan, Sudan and Eritrea were taken by buses organized by the local government to shelters outside the city.

Source: EFE

U.N. says record 65 million people forcibly displaced by end of 2015

More than 65 million people were forcibly displaced by the end of 2015, compared with 59.5 million 12 months earlier, according to an annual report by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) released Monday.

The top host countries included Turkey (2.5 million), Pakistan (1.6 million), Lebanon (1.1 million), Iran (949,400), Ethiopia (736,100) and Jordan (664,100).

Among the countries of origin, the most important is Syria, with 4.9 million exiles outside the country, followed by Afghanistan with 2.7 million, and Somalia with 1.1 million.

Colombia, with 6.9 million cases, Syria, with 6.6 million and Iraq with 4.4 million are the three countries with the highest number of internally displaced people (IDPs), although in the first case it is particularly long-term displacement.

In absolute terms, Turkey is the country to have received the largest number of refugees, while Lebanon has received 183 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants.

The year 2015 saw a record number of new asylum requests to industrialized countries, reaching 2 million, and increasing outstanding claims to 3.2 million.

With 441,000 applications, Germany received the highest number of requests, followed by the United States, with 172,000 cases.

According to UNHCR figures, 51 percent of the world's refugees are children, many of whom have left their countries alone, as reflected in the almost 100,000 asylum applications made by children separated from their families.

Solutions for forcibly displaced people are scarce, with only 201,000 refugees returning to their countries last year, mainly to Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia.

Source: EFE