Yonatan Zunger has written a couple of pieces that are essential reading for anyone concerned about the events of the past week.

First, “What ‘Things Going Wrong’ Looks Like”:

Ultimately, that’s part of a broader pattern: when people are already stretched to their absolute limit emotionally, with financial stresses, family stresses, medical stresses, lack of a clear future stresses, then hearing anyone else ask for something — even if that something is as simple as “the right to walk down the street without being murdered” — feels like an added imposition. And that can lead to a backlash, not just from people who are inherently racist or the like, but also from people who aren’t and just don’t want yet another thing dropped on their plate. But when that’s a backlash against a basic request to be allowed to live (or go to the bathroom, or any other basic aspect of human life), that takes on a much nastier property.

TL;DR – everyone needs to be vigilant against for signs of oppression against minorities in the days to come. Because things have the potential to get very, very bad.

In “Trial Balloon for a Coup?”, Zunger lays out the evidence that the Trump administration’s ban on Muslim travelers was a test of our institutions:

Note also the most frightening escalation last night was that the DHS made it fairly clear that they did not feel bound to obey any court orders. CBP continued to deny all access to counsel, detain people, and deport them in direct contravention to the court’s order, citing “upper management,” and the DHS made a formal (but confusing) statement that they would continue to follow the President’s orders. (See my updates from yesterday, and the various links there, for details) Significant in today’s updates is any lack of suggestion that the courts’ authority played a role in the decision.

That is to say, the administration is testing the extent to which the DHS (and other executive agencies) can act and ignore orders from the other branches of government. This is as serious as it can possibly get: all of the arguments about whether order X or Y is unconstitutional mean nothing if elements of the government are executing them and the courts are being ignored.

Yesterday was the trial balloon for a coup d’état against the United States. It gave them useful information.

The ensemble cast of Stranger Things won a well-deserved SAG award last night, and David Harbour’s acceptance speech blew the doors off the place.

Yesterday, Trump announced a refugee ban that caused confusion and fear, both because the logistics didn’t seem well-considered, and because the actual goal of the ban seemed not to have been well-served.

Here’s a list of relevant links about what’s been going on. This list will be updated throughout the day.

General info

• It appears that Green Card holders won’t be barred from re-entry (NYTimes)
• A New York judge issued a stay to part of Trump’s executive order, but the White House doesn’t think it applies (CNN)
• Ban is unlikely to reduce terror threat (NYTimes)
• The freedom that refugees once found here (New Yorker)
• Silicon Valley’s responses to Trump’s immigration orders, from strongest to weakest (The Verge)
• A list of government officials who have taken no position on the refugee ban (Vox)
• 20 ways you can support muslims/immigrants (Medium)
• #DeleteUber is trending after PR missteps by the company (Buzzfeed)
• Trump’s immigration order annotated (NYTimes)
• The betrayal of legal immigrants who followed the rules (The Atlantic)
• A clarifying moment in American history (The Atlantic)
• Trump’s immigration ban triggers panic at universities (CNN)
• Malevolence Tempered by Incompetence: Trump’s Horrifying Executive Order on Refugees and Visas (Lawfare)

Individual stories

• Trump Muslim Ban May Keep 4-Time Olympic Gold Medalist Sir Mo Farah From Returning Home To His Kids (Deadspin)
• How Trump’s immigration order affects one Iraqi family (McClatchyDC)
• A welcome for Syrians in a country about to ban them (NYTimes)
• This is what it’s like to come the US as a refugee
• Tech employees reeling (CNN)
• Clemson professor gets deported
• Boston-area academics face bans on entering US (Boston Globe)
• Khizr Khan reacts to the news (New Yorker)

Protest news

• Chaos at the SeaTac demonstration over Trump’s ban (Seattle Weekly)
• Protest at JFK came out of “nowhere” (NYTimes)
• More protests planned (CNN)

From The New York Times:

President Trump on Friday closed the nation’s borders to refugees from around the world, ordering that families fleeing the slaughter in Syria be indefinitely blocked from entering the United States, and temporarily suspending immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries.

In an executive order that he said was part of an extreme vetting plan to keep out “radical Islamic terrorists,” Mr. Trump also established a religious test for refugees from Muslim nations: He ordered that Christians and others from minority religions be granted priority over Muslims.

As an immigrant, I am stunned that this is already happening. Also, in a separate Times story about the ban:

Across the Muslim world, the refrain was resounding: President Trump’s freeze on refugee arrivals and visa requests from seven predominantly Muslim countries will have major diplomatic repercussions, worsen perceptions of Americans and offer a propaganda boost to the terrorist groups Mr. Trump says he is targeting.

Even people with green cards are being kept out.