[skuhn]

No, they were not similar.

Obama did not ever ban hundreds of thousands of valid green card or visa holders from re-entering the country where they currently reside full time. Which has also -- effectively -- made those still in the US subject to an exit visa.

As a result, he also did not sow mass chaos by springing a poorly communicated status change on people in the air coming to a country that had already provided them with documents for entry.

[Manishearth]

See also: https://twitter.com/courtneymilan/status/825393465995456517

Most EOs in the past (incl Obama's) have been about relaxing laws, not inventing new restrictions.

[skuhn]

I think it is worth specifically calling out one of the main points of the Twitter post you linked: people who are upset about Trump's executive order on immigration were not necessarily fine with everything Obama ever did.

If it meant we could get Trump out tomorrow, I would gladly vote for Obama a third time. Still, Obama did a number of things while in office that I strongly disagreed with -- and a lot of things that I strongly agreed with. It turns out that life is complicated.