Trump’s Revised Muslim Travel Ban Blocked By Two Federal Judges

Two more losses for the Trump Administration.

law-gavel-lights

Just hours before it was set to go into effect, the revised version of President Trump’s Executive Order purporting to block most travel from six predominantly Muslim nations has been blocked by two Federal District Court Judges literally on opposite sides of the country. The first ruling came late yesterday afternoon from a Federal District Court Judge in Hawaii who ruled on a lawsuit filed by the State of Hawaii, and the second came hours later from a Federal Judge in Maryland ruling in a case brought by a refugee assistance organization:

A federal judge in Hawaii issued a nationwide order Wednesday evening blocking President Trump’s ban on travel from parts of the Muslim world, dealing a stinging blow to the White House and signaling that Mr. Trump will have to account in court for his heated rhetoric about Islam.

A second federal judge in Maryland ruled against Mr. Trump overnight, with a separate order forbidding the core provision of the travel ban from going into effect.

The rulings were a second major setback for Mr. Trump in his pursuit of a policy that he has trumpeted as critical for national security. His first attempt to sharply limit travel from a handful of predominantly Muslim countries ended in a courtroom fiasco last month, when a federal court in Seattle halted it.

Mr. Trump issued a new and narrower travel ban, affecting six countries, on March 6, trying to satisfy the courts by removing some of the most contentious elements of the original version.

But in a pointed decision that repeatedly invoked Mr. Trump’s public comments, Judge Derrick K. Watson, of Federal District Court in Honolulu, wrote that a “reasonable, objective observer” would view even the new order as “issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion, in spite of its stated, religiously neutral purpose.”

In Maryland, Judge Theodore D. Chuang echoed that conclusion hours later, ruling in a case brought by nonprofit groups that work with refugees and immigrants, that the likely purpose of the executive order was “the effectuation of the proposed Muslim ban” that Mr. Trump pledged to enact as a presidential candidate.

Mr. Trump lashed out at Judge Watson during a campaign-style rally in Nashville late on Wednesday. Raising his voice to a hoarse shout, Mr. Trump accused the judge of ruling “for political reasons” and criticized the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which upheld the earlier decision against his administration and will hear any appeal to the Hawaii ruling.

“This ruling makes us look weak, which by the way we no longer are, believe me,” Mr. Trump said, to mounting cheers from a loyal crowd.

Mr. Trump even said he might reissue the initial version of the order, rather than the one blocked on Wednesday, which he described as “a watered-down version of the first one.”

After he signed the revised ban, Democratic attorneys general and nonprofit groups that work with immigrants and refugees raced back into court, claiming that Mr. Trump’s updated decree was still a thinly veiled version of the ban on Muslim migration that he proposed last year.

Judge Watson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, ruled that the State of Hawaii and an individual plaintiff, Ismail Elshikh, the imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, had reasonable grounds to challenge the order as religious discrimination. And he concluded that allowing the travel restrictions to go into effect at midnight, as scheduled, could have caused them irreparable harm.

Judge Watson flatly rejected the government’s argument that a court would have to investigate Mr. Trump’s “veiled psyche” to deduce religious animus. He quoted extensively from the remarks by Mr. Trump that were cited in the lawsuit brought by Hawaii’s attorney general, Doug Chin.

“For instance, there is nothing ‘veiled’ about this press release,” Judge Watson wrote, quoting a Trump campaign document titled “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

Judge Watson singled out Mr. Elshikh, an American citizen whose Syrian mother-in-law had been pursuing a visa to enter the United States, as having an especially strong claim that the travel regulations would harm him on the basis of his religion.

“This is a great day for democracy, religious and human rights,” Mr. Elshikh, who was out of the country, said in a message relayed through Hakim Ouansafi, the chairman of the Muslim Association of Hawaii. “I am very pleased that the processing of my mother-in-law’s paperwork will not stop now but more importantly that this Muslim ban will not separate families and loved ones just because they happen to be from the six countries.”

(…)

In the Maryland case, Judge Chuang, who was also appointed by Mr. Obama, declined to block the entire executive order from going into effect, but ruled that the most important section — banning travel from half a dozen countries — could not be enforced. His decision cited Mr. Trump’s public comments to conclude that there were “strong indications that the national security purpose is not the primary purpose for the travel ban,” and that Mr. Trump may have intended to violate the constitutional prohibition on religious preferences.

In addition to the Hawaii and Maryland suits, a federal judge in Washington State heard arguments Wednesday in cases challenging the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s order, including one brought by a coalition of Democratic attorneys general, and another by nonprofit groups.

Administration lawyers have argued that the president was merely exercising his national security powers. In the scramble to defend the executive order, a single lawyer in the United States solicitor general’s office, Jeffrey Wall, argued first to a Maryland court and then, by phone, to Judge Watson in Honolulu that no element of the order, as written, could be construed as a religious test for travelers.

Mr. Wall said the order was based on concerns raised by the Obama administration in its move toward stricter screening of travelers from the six countries affected.

“What the order does is a step beyond what the previous administration did, but it’s on the same basis,” Mr. Wall said in the Maryland hearing.

After Mr. Trump’s speech in Nashville, the Justice Department released a more muted statement disputing the Hawaii decision, calling it “flawed both in reasoning and scope.” Sarah Isgur Flores, a spokeswoman for the department, said it would continue to defend the legality of the presidential order.

While the Maryland ruling doesn’t go quite as far as the Hawaii ruling, both Judges reached essentially the same conclusion regarding the second travel ban that Seattle-based Federal District Court Judge James Robart, who was later upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, did when he issued the very most sweeping ruling blocking the first draft of the Executive Order that the Trump Administration ultimately withdrew and reissued in its revised form that was allegedly intended to fix the problems that Robart and several other Federal Judges had found in the original order. Principally, this consisted of exempting Permanent Residents and people who already had visas from the travel restrictions as well as dropping Iraq from the list of countries from which travel was banned. The second change, of course, was meant more to address the complaint that the order had the impact of harming people who had helped the United States military during the Iraq War and placing them in danger of retaliation from insurgent groups or from ISIS. When it released the revised order, the Administration insisted that this version dealt with any potential legal problems that the first order may have had, and predicted that it would be upheld in Court just as assuredly as the first one was struck down. As it turned out, their changes proved to be woefully inadequate, and the order seems to continue to have serious constitutional and legal problems that may be impossible for the Administration to address given the clear evidence of the discriminatory intent behind the order, and the fact that statements from both the White House and Trump adviser that the order as written was meant to be the most realistic implementation possible of the worldwide Muslim ban initially announced by then candidate Trump in the middle of the race for the Republican nomination for President.4

Both orders are built on similar grounds, and reach similar conclusions, to those laid out by Judge Robart and the Ninth Circuit in their rejection of the original order. They find, for example, that the Order clearly and unconstitutionally discriminates on the basis of religion in violation of the First Amendment by singling out majority Muslim nations for a ban that simply cannot be supported by the evidence. Both orders also rely heavily on rhetoric we heard from Trump during the campaign, and on statements made by the Administration and Trump surrogates such as Rudy Giuliani that the motivation behind the ban was to come as close as possible to a total ban on Muslims without violating the law. Combined with the fact that the Administration apparently continues to be unable to provide sufficient evidence to support the contention that these six nations represent a security threat to the United States, was seemingly enough to convince Judge Watson and Judge Chaung, both appointed by President Obama, that the order cannot withstand review even on the relatively limited basis needed to pass muster under the analysis utilized for a Temporary Restraining Order.

From here, the case will follow a familiar path. Judge Watson’s ruling, of course, would be appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where is likely faces a difficult future. While it’s unlikely that this order will draw the same panel as the initial order did, the fact of the matter is that the Ninth Circuit is still predominantly made up of Judges appointed by Democratic Judges. Thus, the odds are that the panel that the case draws will be a skeptical one at best, especially given the guidance of the ruling by the previous panel which, while not necessarily binding precedent, the court’s ruling in that case will most assuredly stand as persuasive authority for the panel that hears the newest appeal. The Maryland case, meanwhile, would be appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. This court is a bit harder to read on issues like this, and the outcome is likely to depend heavily on the makeup of the panel that the case draws, but given the rulings that have come from this court in the past on immigration-related issues I would not be optimistic if I were with the Trump Administration. In any case, this all guarantees that the ban will remain on hold for the next several weeks at least, and perhaps appreciably longer, and that’s what really matters.

Here’s the ruling in the Hawaii case:

Hawaii et al v. Trump et al Opinion by Doug Mataconis on Scribd

And here’s the ruling in the Maryland case:

IRAP et al v. Trump et al by Doug Mataconis on Scribd

FILED UNDER: Borders and Immigration, Democracy, Law and the Courts, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. winfieldscott says:

    I know it’s hard to write the words “Trump Administration”, but still, don’t blame Obama for this travel ban fiasco.

  2. @winfieldscott:

    Fixed.

  3. Facebones says:

    Hey, remember how the Trumpers kept telling us to take Trump “seriously, but not literally?” Guess who takes things literally? Federal judges.

    Two different executive orders, two different judges have looked at Trumps words and actions and taken them at face value and decided that when Trump spent a year talking about a “muslim ban” and then banned visitors from Muslim countries, hey guess he really intended to ban a specific religion!

    Apparently, words still have meaning in Trump’s America.

  4. Mark Ivey says:

    “These so called ‘Judges’ need to be ‘wacked’ because they are bad! Sad!”

  5. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    Not a great day for Donnie and the Sycophants.
    His Muslim ban has been struck down. Again.
    Even Paul Ryan is now admitting that Trumpcare won’t pass.
    The White House budget has been declared DOA by Republicans on the Hill.
    And Cheeto-Jesus himself has been forced to go to Tucker Carlson to explain that he wasn’t really accusing Obama of committing a felony when he was accusing Obama of committing a felony.
    Anyone who voted for this man is simply a dumb ass. No other term for it. No explanations. You are just stupid as a big ol’ box of rocks. You possess less intelligence than the counter-top my computer is sitting on.

  6. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    @Daryl’s other brother Darryl:
    Well-oiled machine, indeed…

  7. Janis Gore says:

    Josh Blackman at Lawfare Blog has done a three-part series on the Hawaii decision. In his opinion, the judge is wrong and the EO as written now is legal and within the purview of the President:

    https://lawfareblog.com/legality-3617-executive-order-part-i-statutory-and-separation-powers-analyses

    He thinks the judge is leaning too heavily on McCreary County vs. ACLU, where judges looked back on earlier intent to rule against the plaintiff.

    I think he makes a convincing case, but IANAL and several of you are. What do you say to his legal analysis?

    It’s worth mentioning that he doesn’t think the EO is wise policy.

  8. Bob@Youngstown says:

    I assumed (perhaps naively) that the point of a “pause” in travel was to allow the State Department 90 days to develop improved vetting practices. The Trump’s State department has presumably been hard at work on that task since Jan 20.
    If the above are true, it would seem that any new “pause” should only need to be 30 days (not 90).

    That Trump is asking for another 90 day pause, suggests to me that (1) his State Department is not very efficient, and/or (2) its was never about a “pause” at all.

  9. Facebones says:

    @Daryl’s other brother Darryl:

    Anyone who voted for this man is simply a dumb ass. No other term for it. No explanations. You are just stupid as a big ol’ box of rocks.

    Here’s where I partially disagree.

    If you thought Trump was going to be a champion of the working man, or be a force for change, or suddenly become presidential as of 1/21/17, yes, you’re an idiot.

    If you voted for Trump because he would sign whatever enormous tax break Paul Ryan brought him or you voted for him because you wanted a conservative Supreme court and you could ignore all the other stuff, then you’re getting exactly what you wanted. I think those people made a horrible mistake, but they aren’t stupid. Just extremely short sighted.

  10. Tyrell says:

    This judge in Hawaii seemed to have the correct opinion here and showed some patience and skills in using and analyzing the data. He stayed in the parameters, but was close to the boundaries and fractals. What Trump should do is ratchet things back a year or two and use the exact process and procedures that were done then, down to the exact numbers. And see what the judges think of it then. Many say that they are very close in all but a few details. There should also be some accountability if someone gets in here and creates a lot of trouble in this country.
    I didn’t hear about the other judge’s ruling, so I have not had time to study the various opinions and philosophies.
    “You got a point there, judge” (“Bad Man Blunder“, Kingston Trio)
    “Burn this town to the ground” (Judge Proctor, “Gunsmoke”)

  11. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    @Facebones:

    you’re getting exactly what you wanted

    I get your point…but their stupidity is simply going to take longer to manifest itself…it will though. It will.
    Look…nothing has even happened since the election and the Government is in near chaos.
    What happens when there is some tragic event?
    Is Trump going to wait for the Not-so-Breitbart’s of the world to tell him what to do?
    Some folks may get their tax-cut…but I doubt they asked for what is coming…and that is inevitable.

  12. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    @Tyrell:

    fractals

    Apparently you don’t even know what “fractal” means.

  13. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Janis Gore:

    He’s (deliberately, IMO) focusing on the wrong argument(s). He spends a great deal of time discussing statutory issues, and then deflects to separation of powers, but never addresses the 900 pound elephant in the room – the 1st Amendment problems (which all three judges directly addressed in their rulings). The fundamental concept in play here is that Trump, in the courts opinions, set out to impose limits predicated on religion but attempted to disguise that purpose. He’s dealing with the disguises while ignoring the true purpose.

    It’s focused more on “why the president should be able to do this” rather than on “why the constitution prevents the president from doing this”. Congress can’t specifically via statutory language empower the president to do something that the Constitution debars.

  14. gVOR08 says:

    @Facebones:

    I think those people made a horrible mistake, but they aren’t stupid. Just extremely short sighted.

    In another thread I mentioned George Lakoff’s belief that conservatives default to simple morality rather than thinking through complex causation. That amounts to short sighted.

    However I’d have to add a lot of gullibility. If I believed what they believe about HRC, I’d have voted for Trump too. All of this flows from money in politics and the Mighty Right Wing Wurlitzer. And I have no realistic idea how to fix either. There are obvious ways to fix money, but I don’t see any political way to get there. I’d like to think people are realizing that Trump and the MRWW lied to them, but I don’t see evidence.

  15. Tyrell says:

    @winfieldscott: “hard writing Trump Administration”: are you having that problem too ? I have a lot of trouble with the keys slowing down to a crawl, especially with long words. On this site and a few others, it sometimes takes five minutes to enter one paragraph. I have talked about this with Microsoft and they seem baffled, but are working on it. They mentioned the possibility of spyware. I don’t know. It does not happen all the time, but when it does it sure wastes time. Do you have any clues ?
    General Scott: the man who wrote the strategy that won the Civil War for the Union, yet was forced out of the Union army.

  16. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    OT

    The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a statement Thursday afternoon stating that they have not seen any evidence that President Trump or his residence were the subject of surveillance last year, despite allegations the president made two weeks ago.

    It’s pretty clear now: The President of the United States lied in accusing a former President of the United States of a crime.
    At what point does one Republican somewhere grow a spine and stand up and say; enough.
    It’s pretty sad when Mika Brezinski has more balls than any Republican in Washington.

    “Were you lying, Mr. President? Did you make it up? Was it some little spurt of activity that you had out of need to have action? I’d like to know where it came from because it’s a very serious allegation.”

    “If the president was lying, don’t you think at some point he ought to say, ‘I apologize, I am just an idiot?’”

  17. Janis Gore says:
  18. grumpy realist says:

    OT: (snorfle) Guess how many cases of these sorts of fraud the DOJ will continue to be going after, given that this sounds suspiciously like Trump University shenanigans, down to the praising by the marks customers even before they get any of the service?

    Which is why I’m halfway feeling sorry for the guys who got ripped off and half pissed at them. How big do the letters have to be flashing “I AM A FRAUDULENT CON GAME” before you notice?

  19. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Janis Gore:

    I did. He’s still trying to pretend that the ostensibly sectarian purposes (the existence of which I doubt, but will humor for the purpose of this commentary) somehow obviate the establishment clause problems. It just doesn’t work that way. National origin, religion and alienage are all suspect classes – strict scrutiny applies in multiple ways to these cases IMO, based on the criteria on which the EO proposes to delineate limitations. This EO, like the last one, doesn’t even come close to passing 1A muster.

    This guy – like most originalist / small government attorneys – wants to pretend that strict scrutiny doesn’t apply here. He’s grossly incorrect.

  20. Janis Gore says:

    @HarvardLaw92: Thanks. Just looking for other perspectives.

  21. Kylopod says:

    @gVOR08:

    If I believed what they believe about HRC, I’d have voted for Trump too.

    I wouldn’t. Even if she were as a corrupt as she was depicted, I’d still find her preferable to an authoritarian racist. It would have made the election comparable to the 1991 gubernatorial race in Louisiana between David Duke and Edwin Edwards, when there were bumper stickers that said stuff like “Vote for the crook. It’s important.”

  22. grumpy realist says:

    Doug, another court case I’m sure you will get much amusement from.

    Hooray for the Oxford comma! (I also like this case because it demonstrates what a pickle sloppy writing can land you in.)

  23. Jake says:
  24. michael reynolds says:

    @Jake:
    Thank God we’ve got you to shed the light of your genius upon us.

  25. Janis Gore says:
  26. James Pearce says:

    Trump, with his big mouth, may finally be the president who breaks this executive order madness. Put it through Congress or don’t do it at all.

  27. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Jake:

    Kontorovich is unavoidably biased (and the reasoning in that particular piece is situational, informed by his biases and, frankly, weak to boot).

    Flip the EO to a ban on immigration from Israel and watch how quickly he would change his tune.

  28. Davebo says:

    @HarvardLaw92:

    Flip the EO to a ban on immigration from Israel and watch how quickly he would change his tune.

    Don’t even go there. Heads would explode.

  29. Davebo says:

    @HarvardLaw92:

    Flip the EO to a ban on immigration from Israel and watch how quickly he would change his tune.

    Don’t even go there. Heads would explode.

  30. Lit3Bolt says:

    @HarvardLaw92:

    I’ve heard some whack-a-doodle theories that both the federal courts and Trump are trying to draw each other out to “j’accuse” of overt bias. Is that what’s going on here, using Trump’s rather extensive history of racism against him as proof of intent?

  31. Just 'nutha ig'nint cracker says:

    @Bob@Youngstown:

    its was never about a “pause” at all.

    Ding, ding, ding! Winner, winner, chicken dinner! Please clear your cards as the next round will start shortly.

  32. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Lit3Bolt:

    I think it’s much more a case of clever judges using his own statements as proof of intent. He essentially made their argument for them in a way that boxes him into a corner on multiple levels. What’s he going to do now? Make some silly argument about these specific countries being hotbeds of terrorism – which will invite unending commentary, both about how there have been exactly zero terror attacks committed by immigrants originating in them, as well as about how and why Saudi Arabia and Yemen (actual sources of terrorist attacks on the US), among others, got left off of the list. He can’t admit that the ban was predicated squarely on religion, he can’t make a convincing argument that any tangible risk exists with respect to these specific countries, and he can’t walk it back & say that Muslims aren’t bad (at least not without offending his idiot base).

    Trump – or frankly anybody else in his inner circle IMO – just isn’t bright enough to play chess at this level. I’ve known the man professionally for a long time, and the one characteristic that has never changed about him is his utter inability to shut his mouth. His greatest vulnerability at the moment is that his poll numbers drop further and give Congressional Republicans a segue into tossing him under the bus (something they are already showing signs of wanting to do). He’s so focused on the perceived enemies in front of him that he can’t see that the knives are starting to be drawn behind him.

    The worst beating I’ve ever seen him take was at the hands of a wise old man who knew how to poke Trump’s ego. He goaded Trump into overplaying his hand and then he gutted him.

    Trump doesn’t know when to speak and when to shut up, and that makes him a fool. In this case, a useful fool.

  33. Just 'nutha ig'nint cracker says:

    Mr. Trump even said he might reissue the initial version of the order, rather than the one blocked on Wednesday, which he described as “a watered-down version of the first one.”

    Yeah! That’ll show those uppity judges that they can’t mess with him!

    (And welcome to this week’s episode of “Quien es Mas Macho.”)

  34. Lit3Bolt says:

    @HarvardLaw92:

    Ahhh, I get it. They can’t use the Boston bombers, they can’t use al Qaeda, they can’t use the domestic terror attacks, but maybe they think they can yell “ISIS” enough. Except ISIS members can come from Western societies too, OOPS!!! Yeah, I see how they’ve boxed themselves in a corner on this one.

    So is the larger theme the “prior statements can state intent” theme can apply to the powerful as well, as opposed to just the plebeians? I can’t follow the “Hearsay” arguments.

  35. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    @Jake:
    Oh…Jake, the poster child for the Dunning-Kruger effect, is back.

  36. KM says:

    @Jake:
    You post a link about an article who’s whole point was “OMG don’t look at the historical context of my actions but what I’m doing / saying right now” and think we’re in the dark? In what universe does holding someone’s past words against them count as anything other then necessary context? Even if they were big fat lies, they were big fat lies you were willing to repeat endlessly in public so it must have meant *something*.

    Here’s a hint: if you walk around saying one day you’ll kill your wife for months on end on video and in writing then suddenly you actually do it, those statements *will* be used against in court. *Especially* if you have the nerve to say you didn’t murder her but rather “relocated her to the spiritual plane temporarily to assist in her reincarnation”. Its BS, everybody knows its BS and nobody is going to accept it because they remember you ranting a few weeks ago about how you’d take her out given the chance.

    Past is prologue. To argue otherwise is to deprive meaning of life, facts and rationality….. aka, to act like Trump.

  37. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    @KM:

    everybody knows its BS

    I’m sorry KM…I have to disagree…Jake and the rest of the sycophants are unable to see that it is complete and utter BS. The more you get invested in the con, the harder it is to see that it is a con.

  38. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    On immigration…watch the Irish PM make a fool of Trump who is standing just feet away…and I imagine Trump didn’t even realize he was being made the fool.
    http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/3/17/14957550/trump-immigration-enda-kenny

  39. grumpy realist says:
  40. grumpy realist says:

    @Jake: Jake–I suggest you take a course on the Rules of Evidence.

  41. James in Bremerton says:

    “You got a point there, judge” (“Bad Man Blunder“, Kingston Trio)
    “Burn this town to the ground” (Judge Proctor, “Gunsmoke”)

    Last millennium’s thinking is the worst symptom of our disease in 2017.

  42. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    @grumpy realist:

    Now Spicer is pissing off our Brit allies….

    Even worse…Trump refused to shake Merkel’s hand today.
    https://twitter.com/davidmackau/status/842775869823377409
    I don’t know what’s worse…that he is such a colossal idiot…or that 46% of the voters in this country were stupid enough to vote for such a petulant child.

  43. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    @Daryl’s other brother Darryl:

    Trump refused to shake Merkel’s hand today.

    He was willing to grab her pu$$y, though.

  44. Daryl's other brother Darryl says:

    Trump is now blaming Fox News for his lying about Obama committing a felony.
    So not only is he dumb, but he has no cojones.
    And tiny hands.

  45. Tyrell says:

    Are these judges actually taking seriously the campaign promises, rhetoric, and soap boxing of candidates? If so, they will be easy prey for a car salesmen !
    “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage” Hoover
    “40 acres and a mule” Grant
    “Read my lips, no new taxes” George H. Bush
    (How about my 40 acres, Senator Warren ?)

    These countries that were singled out are the same that the Obama administration selected. Why was there no court action then ?

    Just what would an immigration plan look like that would please these judges ? What kind of security measures ?

    A ban on immigrants who are members of ISIS: would that be legal ?

    It seems odd that a judge way out in Hawaii can hold full sway on the whole mainland.

  46. JohnMcC says:

    @Tyrell: To answer the only question that isn’t extremely stupid: “Those countries that were singled out are the same that the Obama administration selected. Why was there no court action then?”

    Because the Executive Order in which those seven (and as you know – there are now 6 little Indians) were chosen as places through which people who are not natives of the countries but who passed through them might be more likely to be terrorists. Recall that the ‘shoe bomber’ was British. The ‘lab’ that developed his shoe bombs was in Yemen.

    Also you’ll recall Pres Obama did not have a long record of vilifying Muslims nor of publicly seeking methods of excluding Muslims prior to his issuing that Order.

    I’ll also add that if you’d been seriously curious about how those 7 were selected you could have discovered it from a better source than the comment section of a blog. You might have noticed while hanging around here that the sort of statement-in-a-question that works in the neighborhood bar doesn’t do as well here. If you have an opinion about the judge’s ruling it’s much more adult to just tell us.

  47. Turgid Jacobian says:

    @JohnMcC: To elaborate, I believe the difference is that those countries were not believed to be collecting and/or sharing sufficiently high quality information on visa requests and passers-through to follow standard procedures. So the Obama administration got room to review and upgrade procedures and then did so.

    Citing those countries after making all the ridiculously broad statements is clearly just pretext, which anyone can see. Even judges in Hawaii. Which is still a state. And in range of ocean cable and satellite communications and everything.

  48. wr says:

    @Tyrell: “It seems odd that a judge way out in Hawaii can hold full sway on the whole mainland.”

    I know he’s just a troll or a performance artist, but even so there are times when the stupidity is absolutely breathtaking.

  49. JohnMcC says:

    @Turgid Jacobian: Thank you. I fired that off without looking into the background. A fast-and-dirty answer seemed like it would suffice. Your explanation is better.

  50. Jake says:
  51. Just 'nutha ig'nint cracker says:

    @Jake: “Because the United States is in a defensive war against Sharia supremacism.” [First line of the source link.]

    Fine, but no, were not. 1) There has been no war declared by Congress nor War Power Act invocation for Sharia.

    2) There are no political parties running candidates on a platform of invoking Sharia Law.

    3) Even if Congress were to declare war on Sharia, there would be no way to effectively wage that war any more than one can actually wage war on “terror” as a tactic. Sharia is an abstract concept and can only be disbelieved or not followed. The US does pretty well on both of those fronts, even among those who come here from Islamic countries.

    On the other hand, your point about Trump not being hurt by the ban is probably on point. With the National Review and loyal Trumpistas such as your self carrying his water for him, Trump will be able to go on ranting after each subsequent loss on this matter. And in three years, another National Review or Breitbart pundit will still be saying “it’s never been intended as a permanent ban, only a stoppage until proper vetting systems can be put in place.” And you and your buddies will be kidding yourselves that someday the rest of us will be buying into that.

    And you’ll still be wrong!

  52. JohnMcC says:

    @Just ‘nutha ig’nint cracker: This ‘sharia’ paranoia is typical of ‘conservatives’ as we see them today. They are so ignorant that they don’t know that there are several communities in the U.S. that have legal systems that operate within their people and are completely accepted. There are tribal court systems that adjudicate Navajo tribal laws. There is the Jewish Beth Din.

    Anytime you hear someone complaining about Sharia remember that what they are actually saying is that they are bigots who hate Muslims. Or alternatively they are proclaiming themselves to be idiots who chose to believe what bigots tell them.

  53. David M says:

    Saw this article that may explain the quick slap downs the Trump administration is receiving from the courts

    https://www.lawfareblog.com/revolt-judges-what-happens-when-judiciary-doesnt-trust-presidents-oath

    Key excerpt:

    Imagine a world in which other actors have no expectation of civic virtue from the President and thus no concept of deference to him. Imagine a world in which the words of the President are not presumed to carry any weight. Imagine a world in which far more judicial review of presidential conduct is de novo, and in which the executive has to find highly coercive means of enforcing message discipline on its staff because it can’t depend on loyalty. That’s a very different presidency than the one we have come to expect.

    It’s actually a presidency without the principle that we separate the man from the office. It’s a presidency in which we owe nothing to the office institutionally and make individual decisions about how to interact with it based on how much we trust, like, or hate its occupant.

  54. These seven countries were selected because, with the exception of Iran, all of them are countries where a travel ban can be relatively non-disruptive. Banning travelers from Egypt(You know, that country that controls the Suez Canal) or Saudi Arabia(One of the largest suppliers of oil in the world) would create large economic disruption.

    Yemen nor Sudan can’t immediately retaliate against Trump travel ban. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, all of these countries would have large tools at their disposal to do that.

  55. Jake says:

    @JohnMcC:

    Educate yourself regarding Islam.

    Try Mark Durie

  56. David M says:

    @Jake:

    You know, you’re allowed to actually make your own arguments here. Encouraged even. Sometimes links are useful as evidence, but no one is going to take “go read this crackpot” seriously.

  57. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Jake:

    The author of that remarkable piece of garbage titled “Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God”?

    No thanks. I’ll pass.

  58. Jake says:

    @HarvardLaw92:

    The fake lawyer is back.

  59. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Jake:

    Gonna have to better than that, bush league 🙂

  60. Mikey says:

    @David M:

    You know, you’re allowed to actually make your own arguments here. Encouraged even.

    You assume facts not in evidence, to wit: that he has arguments independent of the bullshit he gets spoon-fed by the collection of bigots and sophists that makes up the right-wing fake news establishment.