Trump Dealt Major Setback as Appeals Court Sides With Immigrants

Trump Dealt Major Setback as Appeals Court Sides With Immigrants
by
Erik Larson
and
Kartikay Mehrotra
February 9, 2017, 3:11 PM PST February 9, 2017, 3:47 PM PST

• President says ‘SEE YOU IN COURT’ in Twitter comment on ruling
  
• Immigration ban case inches closer to U.S. Supreme Court
  

A federal appeals court ruled unanimously that the U.S. will remain open to refugees and visa holders from seven Muslim-majority countries, rejecting a bid by the Trump administration to reinstate a travel ban in the name of national security.
The San Francisco-based appeals court on Thursday spurned the government’s request to close the doors after days of public debate over President Donald Trump’s attacks on the judicial system and a rush of fearful immigrants. The ruling increases the likelihood that the administration will ask the Supreme Court to step into a case that’s the biggest test of Trump’s executive power yet.

Trump was defiant, tweeting within minutes of the ruling, “SEE YOU IN COURT. THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!”
The panel’s ruling in favor of immigrants is a victory not only for Washington and Minnesota -- the states that sued -- but for Facebook Inc., Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which said in court papers that the measure would hinder their global businesses.

The public “has an interest in free flow of travel, in avoiding separation of families, and in freedom from discrimination,” the three-judge panel said in a 29-page ruling.
The measure has engendered lawsuits from coast to coast that present early and crucial tests of the president’s unilateral ability to decide who threatens the nation. Opponents of the ban argue it violates due process and equal-protection rights, and runs afoul of the First Amendment’s prohibition of favor for any one religion.
The Justice Department is considering its options, a spokeswoman said. A White House official said its lawyers are reviewing the decision and don’t plan to comment immediately beyond the president’s tweet.



Noah Purcell and Bob Ferguson.

Photographer: Karen Ducey/Getty Images

Washington state Solicitor General Noah Purcell argued to the appeals panel on Feb. 7 that Trump’s statements as a candidate were ample proof that the ban was intended to discriminate against Muslims. “It’s remarkable to have this much evidence of intent,” he said.

‘Complete Shutdown’

In a Dec. 7 statement posted on his website, Trump had called “for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what’s going on.”
August Flentje, representing the Justice Department, reminded the appeals panel during the hearing that a Boston federal judge in a separate case refused to consider Trump’s statements. The order doesn’t target Muslims, he said.
Since U.S. District Judge James Robart temporarily blocked Trump’s ban, refugees and travelers have been rushing to the U.S. The executive order had set off chaos as states, companies, universities, citizens and refugees struggled with the ramifications.

On Wednesday, Trump read a law that gives the president authority to stop the entry of “any class” of foreigner.
"You can suspend, you can put restrictions, you can do whatever you want," Trump told a conference of police chiefs and sheriffs in Washington. "It just can’t be written any plainer or better."

Twitter Messages

Since the ruling, the president, a 70-year-old Republican, has sent Twitter messages excoriating Robart as a “so-called judge.”
Trump’s order bars Syrian refugees indefinitely, and blocks for 120 days all others fleeing their homelands claiming persecution or fear of violence. No citizens of Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya or Sudan could enter the U.S. for 90 days.
Washington and Minnesota argued that the ban hurt residents and businesses, and their case was bolstered by a documents filed by Facebook, Google and Microsoft and a declaration by former government officials, including former secretaries of state John Kerry and Madeleine Albright, former CIA directors Michael Hayden and Leon Panetta and former United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice.
In the suit, the states argued that the ban had an immediate impact on companies by limiting their ability to conduct business and recruit, and harmed universities by stranding faculty and students. Washington’s lawyers argued the travel ban is a “draconian restriction.”
Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order followed campaign promises to stop Muslims from entering the country and roiled world politics. It shut out citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, which Trump argues nurture enemies of the U.S. The government recommended that more than 1,200 people not be allowed on flights and revoked about 60,000 visas.
The appeals court refused to reinstate Trump’s order after a Seattle judge halted enforcement while courts decide whether it’s constitutional.



Muslim men pray while supporters hold up signs during a rally at John F. Kennedy Airport on Feb. 3.

Photographer: Kholood Eid/Bloomberg

The executive order has been the most consequential act of a young and aggressive administration that wants to minimize America’s engagement with the world. Trump and his advisers see Islamist terrorism as a threat best defused by halting the flow of people who might be secretly planning attacks.
The president’s action initially denied entry to an Iraqi who helped U.S. military, professors at University of Massachusetts and a student seeking to bring her daughter for medical treatment. The ban set off angry protests nationwide and attracted a flurry of lawsuits and adverse rulings.
None was more sweeping than that of Robart in Seattle. Washington and Minnesota won the order temporarily blocking the ban nationwide after arguing it hurt their residents and employers including Microsoft, Amazon.com Inc. and the Mayo Clinic.
The fight is far from over. The court battle so far has focused on whether the president’s order should be paused while courts weigh larger issues. Robart already ordered both sides to submit additional arguments focusing on the substance of the case: whether the states have a right to sue and whether Trump’s order discriminates against Muslims.
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-02-09/appeals-court-keeps-u-s-doors-open-during-immigration-fight

Impeachment of Federal Judges

The Founders’ intent for impeachment was to protect the fundamental principle of “the consent of the governed.” The Constitution carries no title but “We the People,” and impeachment removes from office those officials who ignore that standard. (Recall that the Constitution does not guarantee a federal judge his position for life, but only for the duration of “good behavior.” Art. III, Sec. 1)
For this reason impeachment was used whenever judges disregarded public interests, affronted the will of the people, or introduced arbitrary power by seizing the role of policy-maker. Previous generations used this tool far more frequently than today’s generation; and because the grounds for impeachment were deliberately kept broad, articles of impeachment have described everything from drunkenness and profanity to judicial high-handedness and bribery as reasons for removal from the bench. (Sixty-one federal judges or Supreme Court Justices have been investigated for impeachment, of whom thirteen have been impeached and seven convicted.)
Today’s judiciary, not having experienced any serious threat of impeachment as judges in earlier generations, repeatedly flaunts its contempt for the will of the people. It recently has overturned direct elections in Washington, New York, California, Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, etc., simply because it preferred a different outcome. This is not to suggest that the results of all citizen elections are final and infallible, for it is the duty of the Court to protect the Constitution. However, the above elections violated at most the judiciary’s ideological leanings rather than any manifest provision of the Constitution (e.g., English as a State’s official language, ending government assistance for illegal immigrants, enacting term-limits, prohibiting physician-assisted suicides).
Examples of Judicial Abuses
While most are aware of the 9th Circuit’s recent decision that saying “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance threatens our American form of government, there are numerous additional examples, some staggeringly unbelievable. For example, in Jane Doe v. Santa Fe, a federal judge ruled that graduation prayers must not include any mention of “Jesus” or other “specific deities” and that any student offering such a prayer would face immediate arrest and up to six months in jail. The judge threatened “violators” by saying they would wish they “had died as a child” once his court finished with them.

Obama and the Senate with the nuclear option will now be a turn around is fair play, and the democrats without any hope in the Congress will fight in the courts on every EO President Trump signs - the next 8 years will be litigation hell for the country.

trump is acting within his constitutional right to stop refugees, the judges are sworn to uphold the constitution, so, how is it that the judges get away with this?

They should lock those judges up!