Texas Backs President Trump’s Immigration Order

by LANA SHADWICK
16 Feb 2017
Austin, TX

The attorney general of Texas has filed a friend of the court brief with the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of President Trump’s immigration order.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says the president’s order is constitutional and “a lawful exercise of congressionally delegated executive power over foreign affairs and national security.”

“The law makes it very clear that the president has discretion to protect the safety of the American people and our nation’s institutions with respect to who can come into this country,” Attorney General Paxton said in a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “The safety of the American people and the security of our country are President Trump’s major responsibilities under the law.”

The brief argues that President Trump’s executive order “falls well within the powers of Congress delegated to the Executive,” and rebuts the plaintiff’s claim that the executive order violates the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Moreover, it argues, “Plaintiffs’ lawsuit presents no basis to enjoin the Executive’s exercise of the power delegated to it by Congress.”

The plaintiff states’ due process claim must not be sustained he writes, “because nonresident aliens abroad have no constitutionally protected right to seek entry into the United States.”

“Like every other State in the Union, amicus [Texas] has a significant interest in protecting its residents’ safety,” the brief begins. Texas accepts however that, “the State itself possesses no authority to set the terms and conditions of entry for aliens seeking to enter the United States, or to restrict the entry of such aliens for foreign-affairs, public-safety, or national-security reasons. Instead, the State relies on the federal Executive Branch to carry out that function, pursuant to the laws of Congress.” And Congress has given the executive branch “significant authority to prohibit aliens from entering the country, and the challenged Executive Order is a lawful exercise of that authority.”

Federal law gives President Trump the statutory authority for the executive order, the Texas attorney general writes in the brief. He cites 8 U.S. Code section 1182 that provides:

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

As reported by Breitbart News on January 27, President Trump signed an executive order that temporarily bars refugees from entering the United States. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, known for its liberal rulings, asserted a novel theory to say it had jurisdiction to affirm the lower court’s order staying President Trump’s temporary travel halt, reported Breitbart News’ Ken Klukowski. Federal appellate courts do not have jurisdiction to review a lower district court’s temporary restraining order.

The senior legal editor for Breitbart News reported on February 6 that “Washington and Minnesota’s lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s immigration executive order (EO) showcases a cavalcade of legal errors,” including that the case should have been dismissed in whole or in part for lack of jurisdiction. He also noted that the district court judge did not have the legal authority to issue an order that applied nationwide, and the judge did not comply with the law by stating the legal basis to issue the temporary restraining order.

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/...gration-order/