Dems told changes to Trump refugee order unlikely

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly during a Tuesday night meeting with lawmakers indicated the administration is unlikely to make changes to President Trump’e executive order temporarily blocking refugees and citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said the meeting left many questions unanswered, but one message was clear: The administration intends to stand by its order.

That, she said, is a mistake.

“The executive order needs tweaking,” she said. 

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said the meeting did nothing to assuage his concerns.

{mosads}“Countless members of the professional staff at [the National Security Council] had raised concerns about what this might do to America’s standing in the world … [and] similar types of concerns were raised by professional State Department staff,” he said. 

“Clearly there were no changes made.”

Rep. Eliot Engel (N.Y.), the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, left the meeting voicing similar frustrations. 

“I appreciated the meeting with him, but I disagree with this executive order tremendously, and there was nothing that was said that changes my mind,” Engel said.

Kelly demonstrated “that he’s a class act,” Engel added, but “he’s got to defend policy that I think is indefensible. And that’s a hard thing to do.”

Republicans, while largely supportive of Trump’s orders, had some concerns of their own after meeting with Kelly. 

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he still has lingering questions about the ban, which generated countless headlines over the weekend as hundreds of travelers were stranded at airports around the globe and protestors marched in cities nationwide.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said he pressed Kelly on the administration’s decision to leave Congress almost completely in the dark ahead of the Friday’s release of the executive order. 

“I don’t know if it’s by law or by just to be nice to the legislative branch, but there’s always consultation,” he said. 

Grassley said he was largely pleased with the response, but he’s looking for improvement. 

“My judgment is that there’s been a lot of problems that they have corrected or are in the process of correcting,” he said. 

“But not enough people know that, and they could have better communication.”

Members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee will be briefed again by Homeland Security officials Wednesday morning, McCaskill said.

The original executive order barred citizens of Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days. It also suspended refugee admittance for 120 days and Syrian refugee admittance indefinitely.

The administration has made one change to the order: It initially barred permanent residents from returning to the United States if they were coming from one of the seven nations.