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U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart represents part of Miami-Dade County.

President Donald Trumps executive order banning entry of people from seven countries prompted a wave of protests from immigration activists and Democrats in South Florida.

U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Cuban-American Republican whose district includes parts of Miami-Dade, defended Trumps ban by comparing it with an action President Barack Obama took on Cuban refugees in his final days in office.

"I am struck by the double standard and hypocrisy of those who are offended by this executive order, but who failed to challenge President Obama when he took similar action against Cuban refugees; especially since President Obamas action was meant to appease the Castro regime and not for national security reasons," Diaz-Balart wrote in a statement to the press Jan. 30.

Obamas rule change was about the "wet foot dry foot policy," which Diaz-Balart criticized at the time as a "concession to the Castro regime."

Was Diaz-Balart accurate when he said Trumps action was similar to Obamas?

In a word, no. Trumps order, which singled out immigrants from seven countries and refugees from everywhere, was far more broad than Obamas administrative rule change to put Cubans on more equal footing with arrivals from other countries.

Trumps order and Obamas rule change

Trumps Jan. 27 order states: "I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order."

Administration officials said that the order applied to people from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen -- countries identified by the Obama administration as terrorist hotbeds.

"In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles," Trumps order stated.

Trump also put processing of all refugees -- which would include Cubans -- on hold for three months and suspended the vetting of Syrian refugees indefinitely, "until such time as I have determined that sufficient changes have been made to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest."

Obamas rule change, which came through a Department of Homeland Security regulation, applied to one group of people: Cubans. Obamas Jan. 12 announcement ended the so-called "wet foot-dry foot" policy that had allowed Cubans without visas who reached U.S. shores (typically Florida) to gain automatic entry to the United States to ask for political asylum.

Under the policy, those caught at sea, however, were sent back to Cuba. The policy was started in 1995 under President Bill Clinton in an effort to end the rafter crisis and had a major impact in shaping immigrant-rich Miami-Dade County. Obama also eliminated the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program that allowed doctors to apply for parole at a U.S. embassy or consulate.

The "wet foot-dry foot" policy, along with the Cuban Adjustment Act -- which remains on the books -- permitted those who reached dry land in the United States to get permanent residency and green cards after living in the U.S. for a year and a day.

"With this change, we will continue to welcome Cubans as we welcome immigrants from other nations, consistent with our laws," Obama said. The rule change, announced in the final days of his presidency, followed his announcement in 2014 to normalize relations with Cuba.

Obamas rule change did not cut off immigration from Cuba. A Department of Homeland Security official told the Miami Herald that an immigration lottery allowed at least 20,000 Cubans to emigrate to the United States legally each year would remain in effect. Also a program that allows legal residents in the United States to apply for Cuban relatives to join them was expected to continue.

We interviewed several experts on immigration who said Diaz-Balarts comparison was misleading because of the different scope of the directives. While Obama eliminated special treatment for Cubans, Trumps order singled out specific nationalities of immigrants for additional restrictions.

"President Obama decided that applying the same generally applicable standards for all nationalities should apply to Cuban noncitizens," said University of California Davis School of Law immigration law professor Kevin Johnson. "In contrast, President Trump singled out citizens of seven nations for special treatment more harsh than that generally applicable to all other noncitizens."

University of Miami immigration law professor Kunal Parker also said that Diaz-Balarts comparison is invalid.

"President Trump's order singles out certain countries for special treatment and specifically bans Syrian refugees from entering the United States," he said. "Nationals of the seven targeted countries are henceforth going to be treated differently from immigrants and nonimmigrants from all other countries."

Ted Henken, a Latin American studies professor at Baruch College, said that Trumps order reintroduces preferential treatment since it established a loophole for religious minorities.

Trumps order states that when refugee admissions resume, that the federal government will "prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality." (The order doesnt specifically identify religions but the clause about religious minorities has been interpreted to refer to Christians who are minorities in Muslim countries.)

Obamas rule change was about how to process people arriving from one country -- Cuba -- and wasnt related to vetting them for security threats. Trumps order specifically states that it is an order "protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States."

Diaz-Balarts spokeswoman Katrina Valdes told PolitiFact Florida in an email that the point of his statement was not to compare Trumps order and Obamas rule change "but to highlight the hypocrisy" of those who disagreed with Trumps order but supported Obamas rule change.

"President Obama, without warning, introduced chaos into the system for Cuban refugees," he said in a statement to PolitiFact Florida. "Where was the outrage as they were waiting at the border, having traveled for miles in horrible conditions, to have the door slammed in their faces? Obama ended the special parole for the Cuban Adjustment Act and eradicated the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program. He didn't just more strongly vet them, and he didn't put on the brakes for the programs for three months. He ended them."

Our ruling

Diaz-Balart said that Obama "took similar action against Cuban refugees" as Trump did in his executive order.

Experts said that Diaz-Balart is comparing two very different actions. Obamas rule change ended "wet foot-dry foot" -- a policy that provided special treatment to Cubans who arrived on U.S. shores without a visa. Obama didnt entirely halt immigration for Cubans; his rule change meant that they had to apply just like people from other countries.

Trumps order is far more broad and temporarily suspended entry for people from seven specific countries, as well as refugees from everywhere.

We rate this claim False.

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Is Trump's immigration ban comparable to Obama's Cuba rule change? - PolitiFact

In 2010, President Obama directedthe CIA to assassinate an American citizen in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, despite the fact that he had never been charged with (let alone convicted of) any crime, and the agency successfully carried out that order a year laterwith a September, 2011 drone strike. While that assassination created widespread debate the once-again-beloved ACLU sued Obama to restrain himfromthe assassination on the ground of due process and then, when that suit was dismissed,sued Obamaagain after the killingwas carried out another drone-killing carried out shortly thereafterwas perhaps even more significant yet generated relatively little attention.

Two weeks after the killing of Awlaki, a separate CIA drone strike in Yemen killed his 16-year-old American-born son, Abdulrahman, along with the boys17-year-old cousin and several other innocent Yemenis. The U.S. eventually claimed that the boy was not their target but merely collateral damage. Abdulrahmans grief-stricken grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, urged the Washington Post to visit a Facebook memorial page for Abdulrahman, which explained: Look at his pictures, his friends, and his hobbies His Facebook page shows a typical kid.

The U.S. assault on Yemeni civilians not only continued but radically escalated overthe next five years through the end of the Obama presidency, as the U.S. and the UK armed, supported and provide crucial assistance to their close ally Saudi Arabia as it devastated Yemen through a criminally reckless bombing campaign. Yemen now faces mass starvation,seemingly exacerbated, deliberately, by the US/UK-supported air attacks. Because of the wests direct responsibility for these atrocities, they have receivedvanishingly little attention in the responsible countries.

In a hideous symbol of the bipartisan continuity of U.S.barbarism,Nasser al-Awlaki just lost another one of his young grandchildren to U.S. violence. On Sunday, the Navys SEAL Team 6, using armed Reaper drones for cover, carried out a commando raid on what it said was a compound harboring officials of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. A statement issued by President Trump lamented the death of an American service member and several others who were wounded, but made no mention of any civilian deaths. U.S. military officials initially denied any civilian deaths, and (therefore)the CNN report on the raid said nothing about any civilians being killed.

But reports from Yemen quickly surfacedthat 30 people were killed,including 10 women and children.Among the dead: the 8-year-old granddaughter ofNasser al-Awlaki, Nawar, who was also the daughter of Anwar Awlaki.

As noted by my colleague Jeremy Scahill who extensively interviewed the grandparents in Yemen for his book and film on Obamas Dirty Wars the girl was was shot in the neck andkilled, bleeding to death over the course of two hours.Why kill children?, the grandfatherasked. This is the new (U.S.) administration its very sad, a big crime.

The New York Times yesterday reportedthat military officials had been planning and debating the raid for months under the Obama administration, but Obama officials decided to leave the choice to Trump. The new President personally authorized the attack last week. They claim that the main target of the raid was computer materials inside the house that could contain clues about future terrorist plots. Thepaper cited a Yemeni official saying that at least eight women and seven children, ages 3 to 13, had been killed in the raid, and that the attack also severely damaged a school, a health facility and a mosque.

As my colleague Matthew Cole reported in great detail just weeks ago, Navy Seal Team 6, for all its public glory, has a long history of revenge ops, unjustified killings, mutilations, and other atrocities. And Trump notoriously vowed during the campaign to target not only terrorists but also their families. All of that demands aggressive, independent inquiries into this operation.

Perhaps most tragic of all is that just as was true in Iraq Al Qaeda had very little presence in Yemen before the Obama administration began bombing and droning it and killing civilians, thus driving people into the arms of the militant group. As the late, young Yemeni writer Ibrahim Mothana told Congress in 2013:

Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants . . .Unfortunately, liberal voices in the United States are largely ignoring, if not condoning, civilian deaths and extrajudicial killings in Yemen.

During George W. Bushs presidency, the rage would have been tremendous. But today there is little outcry, even though what is happening is in many ways an escalation of Mr. Bushs policies. . . .

Defenders of human rights must speak out. Americas counterterrorism policy here is not only making Yemen less safe by strengthening support for A.Q.A.P. [al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula] but it could also ultimately endanger the United States and the entire world.

This is why it is crucial that as urgent and valid protests erupt against Trumps abuses we not permit recent history to be whitewashed, or long-standing U.S. savagery to be deceitfully depicted as new Trumpian aberrations, or the War on Terror framework engendering these new assaults to be forgotten. Some current abuses are unique to Trump, but as I detailed on Saturday some are the decades-oldby-product of a mindset and system of war and executive powers that all need uprooting. Obscuring these facts, or allowing those responsible to posture as opponents of all this, is not just misleading but counter-productive: much of this resides on an odious continuum and did not just appear out of nowhere.

Its genuinely inspiring to see pervasiverage over the banning of visa-holders and refugees from countries like Yemen. But its also infuriating that the U.S. continues to massacre Yemeni civilians, both directly and through its tyrannical Saudi partners. That does not become less infuriating Yemeni civilians are not less dead because these policies and the war theories in which they are rooted began before the inauguration of Donald Trump. Its not just Trump but this mentality and framework that needs vehement opposition.

Top photo: A Yemeni man walks past cars destroyed during fighting with militants in the city of Zinjibar, Yemen, Thursday, June 14, 2012.

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Obama Killed a 16-Year-Old American in Yemen. Trump Just Killed His 8-Year-Old Sister. - The Intercept

Foreign Policy (blog)

Sorry, Mr. President: The Obama Administration Did Nothing Similar to Your Immigration Ban Foreign Policy (blog) By Jon FinerJon Finer was the chief of staff to Secretary of State John Kerry and director of policy planning at the State Department. He also spent four years in the Barack Obama White House, serving as a senior advisor in the offices of the national ... Trump says extreme vetting pause is same as Obama's 2011 Iraq policyWashington Times Yes, Trump's (and Obama's) ban on some immigrants is illegalHot Air Kellyanne Conway Says Obama Started the Muslim BanTMZ.com LawNewz -Townhall -Express.co.uk all 181 news articles »

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Sorry, Mr. President: The Obama Administration Did Nothing Similar to Your Immigration Ban - Foreign Policy (blog)

Consider Obamas jobs record. During his two terms, the U.S. economy generated 11.3 million new jobs. (See chart at top.) Since the middle of 2010, the Obama economy produced 15.5 million new private sector jobs during 75 consecutive months of employment gains. Thats not only a dramatic turnaround from January 2009, when more than800,000 workers were laid off in a single month, but significant improvement over the anemic 1.3 million jobs added under his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush. (Its no wonder that the Wall Street Journal summed up Dubyas jobs performance as the worst track record on record.)

The unemployment rate, too, has improved markedly since Barack Obama first took the oath of office. Already 7.8 percent then, the jobless rate hit nearly 10 percent in early 2010. But while 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney promised a 6 percent rate by the end of his first term, Obama went far beyond that, leaving office with the unemployment rate down to 4.7 percent.

To put that performance in perspective, its worth looking back at the economic devastation President Obama inherited eightyears ago. As bad as it was believed at the time the administration formulated its $787 billion stimulus program, it later became clear the situation was much, much worse. In 2011, The Economist described the context for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) passed in February 2009:

The White House looked at the economic situation, sized up Congress, and took its shot. Unfortunately, the situation was far more dire than anyone in the administration or in Congress supposed.

Output in the third and fourth quarters fell by 3.7% and 8.9%, respectively, not at 0.5% and 3.8% as believed at the time. Employment was also falling much faster than estimated. Some 820,000 jobs were lost in January, rather than the 598,000 then reported. In the three months prior to the passage of stimulus, the economy cut loose 2.2m workers, not 1.8m. In January, total employment was already 1m workers below the level shown in the official data.

Nevertheless, the February 2009 stimulus had a tremendous impact in driving economic growth and job creation. As then-directorof the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Douglas Elmendorf explained in June 2012 to Republicans claiming Obama made the economy worse:"

Most economists not only think it should have worked; they think it did work, Elmendorf replied. CBO's own analysis found that the package added as many as 3.3 million jobs to the economy during the second quarter of 2010, and may have prevented the nation from lapsing back into recession.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities summed it up, The economy began growing in 2009, and has averaged 2.1 percent annual growth since then. Economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi, who by 2011 concluded that federal intervention to save the economy averted Great Depression 2.0, went even further in 2014.The combined federal efforts to rescue the American economy from its greatest collapse since 1929 "dramatically reduced the severity and length of the meltdown that began in 2008; its effects on jobs, unemployment, and budget deficits; and its lasting impact on today's economy." The impact of the measures taken in 2008 and 2009, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the $800 billion Obama stimulus program, Obama's auto bailout,and the Federal Reserve's "quantitative easing," is simply staggering. Without those policy responsesalmost all of which were opposed by Congressional RepublicansBlinder and Zandi estimate:

That said, while the economy added over 2 million jobs annually for each of President Obamas last six years in office, the number of manufacturing jobs has not returned to its pre-recession levels. In addition to that net 300,000 job loss, the workforce participation rate has dropped from its 2007 rate of 66 percent to around 63 percent now, a level not seen since the late 1970s. The aging population might explain between one-third to one-half of that loss. The rest reflects those who have simply dropped out of the workforce and are now looking for a job.

That is just one of the prices Americans paid because the recovery from the recession that began in December 2007 was slower and smaller than it could haveand should havebeen. If anything, Barack Obama has been a tax-and-not-spend liberal. (Adjusted for inflation, federal spending is lower now than when Obama first became president.) After all, stimulus spending largely ended by 2011. More than40 percent of that $800 billion program was tax cuts. Annual deficits have been slashed by two-thirds during Obama's presidency. The good news is that the higher income and capital gains tax rates on the rich that Obama signed into law in 2013 have refilled the United States Treasury, while as predicted had no negative impact on economic growth and job creation. But as has been documented elsewhere, the recovery from the Great Recession would have been quicker and more robust if the federal government had spent more to offset the "anti-stimulus" of shrinking state and local governments. By May 2013, the Hamilton Institute estimated those austerity policies cost 2.2 American million jobs and resulted in the slowest recovery since World War II.

As the Economic Policy Institute lamented in a recent analysis, it is that austerity which has made the recent recovery the slowest in four decades:

Nevertheless, the U.S. recovery from the global economic calamity of late 2007 through mid-2009 was still impressive, especially compared to other leading economies. Since 2007, American GDP growth has been higher than Germany, France, the UK,and Japan.

Helping fuel that American rebound was the rapid turnaround of the U.S. auto industry. By the fall of 2008, General Motors and Chrysler were on the brink of collapse. Without the infusion of cash by the Bush administration in December 2009 and the major rescue package President Obama put in place the next spring, both companies would have failed, as would the supply chain of partsmakers.

The decision to rescue GM and Chrysler, derided by Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Mitt Romney, had an outsized impact, and not just for states like Michigan, Indiana, Ohio,and Wisconsin. Ultimately, the federal government spent almost $80 billion to save the two companies. But after selling off its remaining shares, the price tag was much lower at $9.3 billion. But as the Center for Automotive Research documented in December 2013, that sum may have been the best investment Uncle Sam ever made:

Had GM and Chrysler failed altogether, the result could have been 4.1 million jobs lost across the U.S. economy in 2009 and 2010, with federal transfer payments and $105 billion in lost income and payroll tax revenue for the U.S. Treasury.

As the Center's chief economist Sean McAlinden put it, "This peacetime intervention in the private sector by the U.S. government will be viewed as one of the most successful interventions in U.S. economic history."

How successful? These pictures of auto industry jobs and auto sales tell the tale:

Despite all of the Republican fear-mongering over job-killing Obamacare and tax increases crushing job creators, the number of full-time jobs continues to expand even as part-time work remains relatively constant. Poverty dropped sharply in 2015, while median household income and wages grew at the strongest clip since before the recession.

Meanwhile, Obamacare has reduced the uninsured rate to its lowest level on record even as it has improved household finances. Together with the Obama administrationseconomic stimulus measures and tax hikes on the wealthy, income equality has started to decline from its recent record highs.

All told, these developments have improved the outlook both on Wall Street and on Main Street. Despite Donald Trumps braggadocio, the stock market was already flourishing under Barack Obama. The Dow Jones jumped by 11,450 points, or 138 percent, during Obamas time in the White House.

Consumer confidence, too, was ramping up long before Trump pulled off his surprise victory in November. One notable downturn came in the spring and summer of 2011, when Republican debtceiling hostage-taking took a toll on both job creation and consumer confidence.

But that wasnt the step that the Kamikaze Conservatives took to undermine the American economy, and with it, Barack Obamas presidency. From literally the night he was sworn in, Obama's Republican opponents engaged in an unprecedented campaign of sabotage designed to derail the economic recovery and his presidency. They didn't just oppose the stimulus (more than 40 percent of which was comprised of tax cuts), but the Fed's quantitative easing program and the White House's auto bailout which saved Detroitand millions of jobsas well. The GOP filibustered his American Jobs Act of 2011 and his plans for an infrastructure investment bank. Not content to rest there, Republican leaders threatened to trigger a default by the United States by refusing to raise the debt ceiling, something they had routinely done 17 times for Reagan (who tripled the national debt) and seven more for George W. Bush (who doubled it again).

Yet in face of it all, the 44thpresidentproduced an economic record that helped earn him recognition as the most successful Democrat since FDR. And thanks to Barack Obama, the 45thpresidentof the United States enters office at a time of American renaissance, not American carnage. Job No. 1for Donald Trump is to stop bragging about the Obama boom he is inheriting. Given Trumps good fortune, job No. 2is simply not to blow it.

* Since 2000, GDP growth has averaged a little less than 2 percent a year. Since the Great Recession of 2008 hit, labor productivity has expanded by less than 1 percent a year. As Neil Irwin explained in the New York Times in August, that means Trump can't get there from here. Our aging population and his planned crackdown on immigration mean a return to the boom days of 1950 to 1973 simply isn't in the cards:

Add it all up, and is Mr. Trump's promise of 25 million new jobs over the next decade and 3.5 percent annual economic growth possible? Only if a burst of innovation arrives that makes every worker's labor go further, and if millions of new immigrants arrive from overseas or the ratio of American adults who want to work rises far higher than it has ever been. Absent all that, the math just doesn't work.

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Trump inherits the Obama boom - Daily Kos

January 29, 2017 Less than a week after the inauguration of President Trump, an Obama has already spoken out against one of his policies.

No, not the 44th president, who left the White House last Friday. In fact, it was Barack Obamas eldest daughter, 18-year-old Malia, who attended an event at the Sundance Film Festival this week to express solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe the Native American group that for months has protested the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

The news was revealed by Divergent actress Shailene Woodley, herself a vocal activist against the oil route, in an interview with Democracy Now!:

AMY GOODMAN: Were you surprised to see Malia Obama yesterday at the protest?

SHAILENE WOODLEY: It was amazing to see Malia. I saw her last night when we did the event with Chairman Dave Archambault. And it was incredible to see her there. Also

AMY GOODMAN: President Obamas daughter.

SHAILENE WOODLEY: President Obamas daughter. Also, to witness a human being and a woman coming into her own outside of her family and outside of the attachments that this country has on her, but someone whos willing to participate in democracy because she chooses to, because she recognizes, regardless of her last name, that if she doesnt participate in democracy, there will be no world for her future children.

Tuesday morning, Trump signed a presidential memorandumordering DAPLs expedited review and approval. That night, Malia, Woodley and others at Sundance assembled in support of Standing Rock.

Opponents of the 1,172-mile pipeline argue that it would run through ancient Sioux burial grounds, and that the project could possibly leak into the Missouri River. Last month, the US Army Corps of Engineers the federal agency overseeing DAPLs construction ordered a stop to construction pending further review.

Malias appearance at the annual movie meeting in Utah came as no surprise, seeing that shes interested in an entertainment industry career. The New York Post reported last week that Malia will be interning with Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, after previously working on the sets of HBO and CBS television shows.

But was her DAPL stance a preview of an outspoken career? Perhaps. While the former president said in his final press conference that neither Malia nor 15-year-old Sasha intend to pursue a future of politics, he did hint at their coming civic engagement:

I think that they have, in part through osmosis, in part through dinnertime conversations, appreciated the fact that this is a big, complicated country, and democracy is messy and it doesn't always work exactly the way you might want, it doesn't guarantee certain outcomes. But if you're engaged and you're involved, then there are a lot more good people than bad in this country, and there's a core decency to this country, and that they got to be a part of lifting that up.

And I expect they will be. And in that sense, they are representative of this generation that makes me really optimistic.

Joshua Kendall, author of First Dads: Parenting and Politics from George Washington to Barack Obama, says that in general, political children tend to be rebels.... There is this tradition of the First Kids really speaking out, and Malia is firmly in that tradition.

The most direct parallel between Malia and another first child, Kendall says, is with Amy Carter, the youngest of former President Jimmy Carters four children. Both were around the same age at the time of their fathers inaugurations Amy was 9, Malia was 10. Both are Ivy Leaguers Amy went to Brown University, and Malia will attend Harvard this fall.

The teenage Amy was known for her political activism, having marched with counterculture figure Abbie Hoffman. Both were arrested in 1986 at an anti-CIA demonstration in Massachusetts. A year later, after she and Hoffman were acquitted, 19-year-old Amy invited supporters to another CIA protest at the agencys headquarters in Virginia.

Kendall chronicled in his book: Everyone out there should be at Langley, she stated before adding with a smile, Tell your parents to come. This was a knowing reference to her famous father, Kendall says.

Carter fully supported his daughter, Kendall says, and the same is also true of former President Gerald Ford. Two days after Ford was inaugurated in 1974, his eldest son Michael then a graduate student at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary told the Associated Press that recently-resigned President Richard Nixon should make a total confession of what was his role in Watergate.

Ford, who went on to pardon Nixon, said a month after Michaels comments that All my children have spoken for themselves since they first learned to speak, and not always with my advance approval. I expect that to continue.

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Malia Obama at pipeline event: Do former 'First Kids' normally attend protests? - Christian Science Monitor