Seth Meyers cringes over Trump's 'cruel and unnecessary,' incompetently enacted immigration order
On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order on immigration and refugees "that was not only cruel and unnecessary but also apparently very poorly thought out," Seth Meyers said on Monday's Late Night, noting that when Trump signed it, it looked like he hadn't even read the order. Neither had anybody charged with carrying it out, so there was mass confusion at airports around the country.
"In an especially cruel twist, the ban resulted in the detention of an Iraqi who had worked for a decade as an interpreter for the U.S. military in Iraq," Meyers said, showing an interview of Hameed Darweesh, after he was finally let through customs. "Think about that — he was detained for 18 hours at JFK, and he still loves America. If you can spend more than 2 hours at JFK without losing your sh-t, you should get automatic citizenship." He also ran through some other people caught up in the chaos, including a 75-year-old grandma with a green card.
"It's only been a week, but the Trump administration's already revealed itself to be a government of incompetent authoritarians with nothing but contempt for many of the basic constitutional principles this country's cherished since its founding," Meyers concluded, hours before Trump fired his acting attorney general for declining to defend the order in court — likely the subject of Tuesday's "closer look." On Monday, he ended with a Samuel L. Jackson joke. Watch below. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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