[leereeves]

Selective quoting?

A senior White House official later sought to clarify the situation, saying green card holders who had left the United States and wanted to return would have to visit a U.S. embassy or consulate to undergo additional screening.

Additional screening, not barring green card holders.

[nl]

There had been some debate whether green card holders should be even allowed to board international flights. It was decided by the Department of Homeland Security they could fly to the US and would be considered on a case-by-case basis after passing a secondary screening... Separately, a person familiar with the matter said career officials in charge of enforcing the executive order were not fully briefed on the specifics until Friday. The officials were caught off guard by some of the specifics and raised questions about how to handle the new banned passengers on US-bound planes. Regarding the green card holders and some of the confusion about whether they were impacted, the person familiar with the matter said if career officials had known more about the executive order earlier, some of the confusion could have been avoided and a better plan could be in place.[1]

They were making it up as they went, and different parts of the government got different messages.

[1] http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/28/politics/donald-trump-trav...

[leereeves]

Yeah, it seems clear that they failed the execution, whatever their intentions were.

Not that surprising given their lack of experience in government.