Can anyone give me one legitimate reason for the Trump administration to bar this man from coming into the US for the purpose of refereeing World Cup soccer games?
"The World Cup is supposed to bring the global community together in a celebration of sport and diversity. The Trump regime has absolutely ruined it for millions of fans around the world by injecting their racist, fascist ideology into an event that celebrates the exact opposite." --Truth and Accountability Project
Details of Artan's nightmare immigration journey revealed
"Per the New York Times, Artan endured an 11-hour immigration interview.
He was then moved to a separate holding cell and detained for several more hours before being placed on a return flight to Istanbul in Turkey.
Speaking to the same publication, Artan insisted he 'had the right papers and everything' required for entry into the US."
My money's on a Palantir trace.... either that or the Biden Admin flagged him when they put Tulsi on the No Fly watch list.
ReplyDeleteNah. Occam's Razor: It's the xenophobic racist Trump regime at work befouling our image to the world.
DeleteThe befouling started with the founding of the CIA in '47. All Trump has done is drop the pretensions.
DeleteThe befouling of America started in 1619. It continued with "3/5th persons", a war to preserve it, Jim Crow to restore it, segregation for it's last systemic stand by "America First" racists, and continues in MAGA crying about "anti-white racism".
DeleteWelcome to "White Manistan", the dark underbelly of the former United States.
The trump regime, and trump himself, is cause the be ashamed of being an American in this present day.
ReplyDeleteSo... a couple of thoughts.
ReplyDelete1. The Trump Admin has placed Somalia on a 100% no entry to the USA list. If the Trump Admin bends those rules for one, immigration lawyers will certainly argue that the ban is not total, but capricious and must be repealed.
2. FIFA screwed this up. They knew the rules. No Somalis would be allowed in. They should have assigned this referee to games in either Mexico or Canada.
This reinforces what the rest of the world thinks of us: Racists. And they're not wrong.
DeleteIndeed!
DeleteWell... there's more actually. The Iranian team has three games on US soil in the first round. But, they are not allowed to be housed in the US. So, they are staying in Mexico, and must fly in on the day of the game. If there are any flight or immigration delays and the team is late for their game, they forfeit.
ReplyDeleteNow, FIFA and others can carp all they want. But everyone knew these restrictions BEFORE scheduling. Why did FIFA not fix this?
Is this a bunch of racist BS? Of course. But it could have all been avoided had FIFA, literally the most hated sports org in the world, taken care and done a better job.
BTW... If the Iranian team makes it out of the group stage, their next game will likely be against the US of A on July 3.
Just think about that...
Why would it reinforce that we are racist. Not everything is racist in most peoples eyes. If you try to enter a country where you are banned that is just incompetent but of course soe view everything as being racist, after all it has worked in the past.
ReplyDeleteskud: "Why would it reinforce that we are racist."
DeleteSomalis are black; they are banned from entering the U.S.
South African whites are being/were encouraged to emigrate to the U.S.
Donald Trump, the freaking POTUS, reposted images of former President Obama and his wife as apes, a common racist tactic used in this country to dehumanize people of African descent.
When the POTUS, who represents the American people to the world, posts sickening, disgusting racist images of a former president of the United States, that declares to the world that we are racist. Trump is too stupid and too racist to understand that, but we, the American people, get blamed for his filthy behavior, BECAUSE HE REPRESENTS ALL OF US and he was chosen by a plurality of the American people as OUR LEADER.
So, skud, you are wrong. When the POTUS behaves like a racist swine in front of our country and the world, then, yeah, people think that he represents US and the values we share. And what he did WAS racist.
And like the cowardly little worm that he is, Trump refused to apologize for posting the racist image on his Truth Social account.
DeleteHe blamed a "staffer" for doing it. And not one person with a functioning brain cell believed the liar.
Skud... in this case, it's clear the man poses no security threat. This is a world wide sporting event. We've allowed racists, communists, Nazi's and all kinds of scurrilous athletes t compete here in the past. And we've competed against our enemies multiple times in the Olympics.
DeleteWhile unwise, it was not unreasonable to think the guy might be given a pass by the admin in light of Trump receiving the FIFA Peace Prize.
However, my point above still stands, FIFA should've assigned this ref to Mexico and/or Canada.
And yes, the underlying policy does, at least, IMHO, sow us as racist.
Why consider any athlete or referee as "scurrilous" just because they reside in a sovereign state whose political, economic, or social structure does not align with this nation's?
DeleteTo me that is othering someone based only on ideology and or geography.
Oh, almost forgot. It's trump. Our nation's poster boy for racism and ideological stupidity.
skud asked "Not everything is racist in most peoples eyes."
DeleteHuh. Really skud? Who have you polled about the topic? I ask because I'm doing my best to learn what is and isn't racist and I've found if I listen to BIPOC then I learn really quickly that those throw away phrases I've said for more than half my life have insanely racist origins.
Shawe and Dave both gave you incredibly charitable answers. They both were kind to you. I wouldn't have been so gracious as I know the evil which lurks in your heart skud. You've accidently revealed too much too many times for me not to see what I see.
Please take the lessons presented here with the grace they afforded you. I'm not expecting anything of course because you skud, are you.
I've also heard many people state that if FIFA knew how the trump regime was going to be, why didn't they just pull out of the U.S. I worked on national conferences for over 30 years, and as small as we were (bringing in around 20,000 people), we had contracts signed 5-7 years in advance. Something like the World Cup you can't just easily cancel and move to another city/country in such a short amount of time. FIFA was probably minting the FIFA Peace Prize on November 6, 2024 hoping that would help grease his already greasy palms...
ReplyDeleteLes Asked... "Why consider any athlete or referee as "scurrilous" just because they reside in a sovereign state..."
ReplyDeleteLes, I wasn't describing the ref as "scurrilous" but as a sports fan, there's no doubt over the years some of the "amateur" athletes here from Soviet Bloc countries were most likely somewhat "scurrilous" for any number of reasons. Including doping, cheating, etc.
I simply refuse to other any athlete for that. Unless there is also an accompanying acknowledging that there are American athlete guilty of the same, Dave.
DeletePossum... I know this may be hard to imagine, but FIFA might be more corrupt that Trump. They make the IOC look like virtuous, morally upstanding folks.
ReplyDeleteSo I never expect them to do the right thing.
LOL! Not being any kind of a sports fan, I know next to nothing about these organizations...
DeleteI am not against him being a referee and there is no ban on blacks like Ms. Shaw states. There is a ban of on people from Somalia. If you are going to host an international event all participants should be allowed to attend. They can be restricted once they enter but they should be allowed to attend.
ReplyDeletePL is correct in that events are planned years in advance and you can't just change in a couple of months. When the US was selected to host who would have believed trump would be president. Like athletes, officials work years to get to a high position and just because their country is not well regarded they deserve to serve in the position they earned. FIFA and the IOC should be disbanded but what or who would take their place?
Grey, As I stated everything is not about race except in some eyes.
Please reread my comment, Skud. I did not state that the Trump administration banned Black people. Again, you misread. I stated that the administration banned Somalis. Period.
DeleteSkud is sorta correct in that "everything is not about race". But, in the US, a country founded in practice on racist ideals and which has been built on the backs of slave labor, and which also included the wholesale genocide of numerous people groups while we stole their land, race IS part of many of the discussion in the US.
ReplyDeleteIt is the unspoken undercurrent to almost all of the difficulties the US faces.
And yes, it is part and parcel integral to many of the decisions made by the Trump Admin and ironically, most other US administrations.
It is the shame Americans have refused to face openly, and discuss honesty for 250 years.
ReplyDeleteMs. Shaw, "Somalis are black; they are banned from entering the U.S." Now the correct thing to say is not all Somalis are black but all Somalis are banned. The way you say it implies a meaning of they are banned because they are black not because they are Somalis. I know words matter but so do sentences.
ReplyDeleteThe vast majority of Somalia's population (~85% to 98%) are ethnic Somalis, who are indigenous Black Africans of the Horn of Africa. The remaining population largely consists of non-Somali ethnic minorities, primarily the Bantu and other groups. The Bantu are also Black African peoples.
DeleteSomalia is 85 -98% made up of Somalis who are Black people, with other ethnic groups, like the Bantu, who are also Black. Somalia is widely considered one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in Africa.
The population is overwhelmingly comprised of: Ethnic Somalis (~85-92%)Bantu and other non-Somali minority groups (e.g., Arabs, Bajuni, Bravanese) (~8-15%) -- people of color.
There is no significant population of white people in Somalia.
It is not incorrect to understand that Somalia is a huge majority Black country. Therefore, it is not incorrect to see racism in Trump's banning ALL Somalis from the US. He's banning Black people from a majority Black African country.
What I wrote is NOT incorrect.
The few white individuals currently in the country are almost exclusively temporary expatriates, such as diplomats, United Nations staff, aid workers, or international journalists operating in secure zones (such as the heavily guarded Aden Adde International Airport area in Mogadishu).
DeleteWould this be better Skud? All Somalis are banned from the US. And upwards of 95% of them are black.
DeleteWould that work?
Are you aware that conservative, racist southern politicians made your exact argument to deny black people the right to vote? Were they, in that day, primarily white, southern Democrats, racist?
There is no colorblindness, as Sam Ervin called it, in a law that purports to treat all alike, but in practice, negatively affects a population of people of color.
Redlining affected everyone too. But blacks and other minorities were the ones negatively impacted. Was red lining racist?
You seem to be arguing for the old southern line.
I did research on the ethnic and racial make-up in Somalia's population, and the results were that it is an overwhelmingly majority African Black population, which includes other ethnicities who are also Black or other color. Whites who live there are, as I found, mostly nationals who are diplomats or work temporarily there. IOW, negligible. Somalia is a Black country, and Trump's administration banned people from that Black country from emigrating to America.
DeleteIt's interesting. For eight years one of the criticisms from many of the Pre-MAGA crowd of Barack Obama was that the world thought less of America during his presidency.
ReplyDeleteWe can argue all day about whether that was reality or not, but facts are facts. The chattering conservative classes, as evidenced by bloggers at AOW and the SS Mothership of Denial were frequent worriers that the reputation of America was suffering because of Obama.
Here's what we are seeing now during the run up to the World Cup. Soccer teams cannot stay in the US. Referees are barred from entering our country. Fans from around the world are facing US entry roadblocks that came up after we started the Iran War.
People around the world are saying America is a train wreck, a disaster, has lost our way, is no longer the shining city on a hill and worse.
Are our Pre-MAGA friends of yore, now full MAGA fans, stepping up to criticize President Trump for this drop in US popularity around the world? Are they apoplectic about how the world is now feeling about the US? Does it bother them that the world currently sees the US as a s*#thole country?
Not at all.
Which is all fine with me. They can believe what they want. But... let's remember, for some reason realities like this used to piss them off. Now?
Not so much.
I wonder why.
Why? Likely Ignorance & Fear. Driven by misguided self interests. So, they look for a strongman authoritarian who promises they can fix it.
ReplyDeleteSo, for the record... The Somali referee was issued a VISA waiver to come to the US. He got on the plane and when he landed and went to be processes, a vetting process happened. That process showed he has allegedly had contacts with a known Somali terrorist. So he was excluded with cause.
ReplyDeleteAnd we're supposed to take this administration's word?
DeleteWell... I get it. I'm just sharing the "official line".
ReplyDeleteThis whole world cup fiasco has Steven Miller‘s fingerprints all over it.
DeleteWhy anyone would takes this regimes word is to defy logic.
ReplyDelete