Thread: Trump’s Refugee Order Back In Federal Court This Week

Posted By Kevin Daley On 4:27 PM 05/07/2017

President Donald Trump’s second executive order on refugee and migrant entry faces another daunting test this week, as a federal appeals court weighs the fate of a directive administration officials claim is essential to the nation’s continued security.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals will hear arguments from government lawyers and civil rights advocates Monday, as they vigorously contest a lower court decision temporarily halting the implementation of a key provision of the revised order.

District Judge Theordore Chuang issued a decision in March barring enforcement of a provision of the order that temporarily banned citizens from six countries with significant terrorist presence from entering the United States. The 4th Circuit will review Chuang’s order during Monday’s hearing.

The administration issued its first order on immigrant entry in late January. The order was quickly stayed by several federal courts, after days of chaos and uncertainty at airports all over the country. The hastily-drafted order was widely panned by legal observers for its vague and imprecise language. The president issued a second, narrower order in early March, which is more likely to survive legal scrutiny.

Fourteen of the 4th Circuit’s judges, nine of whom were appointed by Democratic presidents, will participate in Monday’s arguments. For the first time since 1998, the court preemptively decided to hear the case “en banc,” a procedure in which all active judges in a circuit court participate in a case.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, one of the country’s most prominent conservative jurists, recused himself from the case because he is related to acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, a U.S. Department of Justice official supervising government lawyers arguing the case. Ethics rules require federal judges to recuse themselves from cases featuring lawyers to whom they are related.

Professor Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond School of Law says the case will likely turn on how the court chooses to frame the controversy.

“I think a lot depends on how the judges view the case,” Tobias told the Associated Press. “Is this a national security case or is this an immigration case? Or is this a religious freedom case?” Should the court evaluate the case within a national security framework, the government is more likely to prevail. Federal courts typically defer to government findings in national security controversies.

Given the intense public interest surrounding Monday’s proceedings, the court will broadcast the hearing through an audio feed available on its website. The court is likely to issue a decision in a matter of weeks, given the urgency and controversy surrounding the order.

Statements Trump made during the campaign are likely to present the greatest challenge to government lawyers. Though the text of the order makes no reference to specific religions, lower courts have found that comments Trump and his surrogates made during the 2016 presidential election evince an intent to discriminate against Islam, or at the very least leave the public with such an impression.

Even if the government prevails in the 4th Circuit, enforcement of the order will still be enjoined by U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson’s order, which found the directive could violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause. Watson’s ruling barred enforcement of the provision concerning travel from six countries with significant terrorist presence, as well as a provision temporarily suspending the refugee resettlement program.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will review Watson’s ruling during arguments next week.

The legal controversy surrounding the revised order is almost certain to reach the Supreme Court. Regardless of outcome, the losing party is certain to ask the high court to take up their case. Should the 4th and 9th Circuits reach different conclusions with respect to the order, the odds of Supreme Court review will increase significantly.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/07/tr...urt-this-week/

To me this is all ill-advised. We need to pull out of these stupid lawsuits. There's other better ways to skin these cats. The 90 days has already passed and the 120 days will be over in 3 weeks. NOT WORTH IT. All it does is give the liberals in favor of massive unsustainable immigration their day in court, their days on TV, their glory on a stage, win or lose. It's a no-win deal for US even if we win and I don't think we will.

Just pull out of the lawsuits and find another way to stop illegal and excess dangerous immigration. There are many many other ways to do it. Use those. Just my 2 cents worth.

Appeals Court to Take Up Revised Trump Travel Restrictions

May 7 2017, 11:49 pm ET
by Pete Williams

Candidate Donald Trump's calls for a ban on Muslim immigration are at the heart of a challenge to his revised executive order restricting travel, to be considered Monday by a federal appeals court.

To those who successfully sued to stop enforcement, his statements are clear proof that the order was based on religious discrimination. But to the Trump administration, they are irrelevant, because all that counts is what the president said and did after he took the oath of office.

The government is urging the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, to lift a stay imposed by a federal judge in Maryland on March 16 blocking the administration from carrying out the executive order. The full 15-member court will consider the appeal, bypassing the normal first step of a hearing before a three-judge panel.

Justice Department lawyers say the court should evaluate the words of the executive order and the administration's explanation for its purpose, avoiding "judicial psychoanalysis" of what Trump may have meant during the campaign.

"Statements of what candidates might attempt to achieve if elected, which are often simplified and imprecise, are not official acts," the government says. Courts must judge the constitutionality of the executive order by what it says, "not by what supposedly lies at the heart of its drafters."

But the American Civil Liberties Union, representing a group of refugee aid organizations and Muslim residents whose overseas relatives are seeking visas, says Trump never disavowed his plan to target Muslim immigration.

"President Trump publicly committed himself to an indefensible goal: banning Muslims from coming to the United States," and the court should consider those statements in deciding whether the executive order is based on anti-Muslim animus, the ACLU says.

Under the government's approach, the ACLU says, if a politician campaigned on a promise to make Christianity the national religion, the courts would be forbidden to consider the candidate's speeches, literature and websites, no matter how specific and consistent the promises, how quickly they were carried out after the election and how much they affected non-Christians.

The administration's lawyers say the revised order — imposing a 90-day ban on travel from Iran, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen — was intended to enhance national security by allowing the government to study its ability to properly vet visa applications from those countries.

The goal was not to restrict travel by Muslims, the Justice Department says in its legal brief submitted ahead of Monday's courtroom showdown. "Those countries represent a small fraction of the world's 50 Muslim-majority nations and approximately ten percent of the global Muslim population."

What's more, the government says, any claim of discrimination now is premature, because visa applicants from those countries can seek waivers from the executive order. The Iranian wife of one of the challengers was granted an immigrant visa May 1, the government says.

But the ACLU counters that the executive order was aimed at countries whose populations are overwhelmingly Muslim. The harm to Muslims in the United States is immediate, the ACLU says, because the Trump order creates feelings of marginalization and exclusion.

The challengers "invoke their rights to be free from government condemnation of their religion within the United States," the ACLU says.

Trump's original travel order, issued seven days after his inauguration on Jan. 20, was blocked by court rulings. Enforcement of the revised order, which was to have taken effect on March 16, was also barred by a federal judge in Hawaii. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear an appeal of that ruling later in the month.

Both appeals courts would have to rule in the administration's favor to allow enforcement of the revised executive order. But if either court rules against the government, an appeal to the Supreme Court seems certain.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...ctions-n756081

These plaintiffs are exploiting our court system as a race-baiting stage for their agenda to destroy America. The time periods of the original bans they are disputing have either already expired (90 day) or will by the end of May (120 day) prior to the 9th circuit hearing, so it's all either moot or water under the bridge anyway. I guess the revised ban would have new time periods that extend into the summer from March 16th forward to June (90 day) and July (120 day), but is there any practical effect to that now? Trump's already close to his 50,000 total refugee limit and will probably have met that number before then anyway, and that's refugees from everywhere.

I'm just a nervous nellie when it comes to court cases on immigration and the reason is we never win them, they always go to the other side in their final resolution. whether conservative or liberal, because for some untold reason these judges are more sympathetic to the plights of immigrants than to the protections of citizens.