[TenOhms]

Possibly since the OP expressed concern that their travel plans could be interrupted without notice, but that doesn't appear to be a warranted concern since the exact same temporary bans were put in place by previous presidents including President Obama and are therefore nothing new.

[dragonwriter]

> the exact same temporary bans were put in place by previous presidents including President Obama

Except, and here's the key thing, that never happened.

In response to a specific, concrete threat Obama instituted a much more limited delay on certain applications from Iraq in 2011 which had no effect on most visa categories or any already issued visas or LPRs.

And in 2015, the 7 countries subject or the 90 day ban in the Trump order were removed (4 by legislation, 3 by executive action) from the Visa Waiver Program, but no ban or delay of new visas, and no ban of entry by LPRs or persons with valid existing visa, was instituted.

People defending the Trump policy as nothing new continue to try to blend the 2011 action, the 2015 action, and a healthy dose of pure fantasy to argue that Obama did exactly what Trump did in this EO, but that is completely false and utterly dishonest.

[roywiggins]

When did Obama institute travel bans on already-issued valid visas?

[mrgoldenbrown]

>the exact same temporary bans No. The Obama era bans were not at all the same. Citation please. I would counter-cite, but that's hard to do when you don't mention which Obama action you are claiming as exactly the same.

[tdb7893]

My understanding is that it is different in at least these ways: 1. Was focused on a specific threat 2. Didn't apply retroactively, to all green card holders 3. Didn't fully stop the programs, just slowed them down as processes changed

I'm not super familiar with Obama's original order but any one of these three differences I think is enough to say that his order was substantially different.

[willstrafach]

I hear this often, but I have not been able to find anything recent which would cause the same level of problems and uncertainty as this EO did.