At State Department, 'Dissent Channel' In High Gear With Refugee Ban Protests
NPR:
At the State Department, employees are expressing concern via an official dissent channel about the Trump administration's temporary visa and refugee ban.
At the State Department, there is an easy and usually private way for employees to register their concerns about U.S. policy. It's called the "Dissent Channel." And today, an unusually large number of foreign service officers are using it.
A dissent cable says Donald Trump's temporary visa and refugee ban "runs counter to American values" and could be "counterproductive."
Trump's Immigration Freeze Omits Those Linked To Deadly Attacks In U.S.
The White House claims it consulted for "many weeks" with the State Department before issuing its executive order on Friday, temporarily banning visas for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries and suspending the U.S. refugee resettlement program.
State Department officials who were involved in the refugee program deny this. One retired ambassador, Laura Kennedy, says the executive order did not read as if it had been reviewed by State Department lawyers or by consular or refugee officials.
"It is just, as the dissent message makes clear, inconsistent with values, with security aims of the administration, with process, with any number of things," Kennedy says.
More - this is very good stuff coming in from National Public Radio right now!
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/01/30/512494230/at-state-department-dissent-channel-in-high-gear-with-refugee-ban-protests?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news