Trump made a very poor choice in blocking everyone from seven nations, including legal residents. But does a poor choice mean unconstitutional?
I asked an legal acquaintance whose opinion I hold in extremely high regard what he made of this setup. He replied …
Nothing is certain in law, but the portions of the executive order that relate to people who live here should be unconstitutional on a variety of grounds. I don’t know which arguments the 9th Circuit will select.
The portions of the executive order that relate to people abroad are difficult because they have no right to assert the constitution. The court will need to decide whether the US citizens are sufficiently affected. I believe the Court will conclude they are, but it would be a respectable opinion to go the other way.
Surely the President cannot issue an order to keep out all Muslims and have it stand that way. However, Trump’s order does not actually bar Muslims. The Massachusetts court focused on this, and it is a respectable legal position. The establishment argument is a bit suspect, though. I expect the court to give close scrutiny to the government’s establishment rationale.
Incidentally, a 9th Circuit win for Washington State leaves us in a strange spot. We’d have a national order with a Massachusetts federal court deciding the other way. The current Supreme Court would likely uphold a 9th Circuit ruling no worse than 4 to 4.
Finally, the ACLU is not appealing its Massachusetts loss, hoping to use the 9th Circuit.
The above makes perfect sense to me from every angle.
Trump’s arguments that we need the ruling to keep out the “bad guys” does not stand up to even a modicum of scrutiny. The legal residents are already here except a small number trapped overseas by his blanket ban.
Trump could have easily reissued the order without affecting legal residents. Instead, Trump chose to attack the court in a series of tweets.
One might even wonder if Trump’s arrogant, childish attitude towards the court might sway a justice to lean the other way, just to stick it to Trump.
Judges are supposed to rule on the merits of cases, but they are human.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Re: Trump’s attitude & tweets.
He should very nicely and quietly STFU . !!
Judges SHOULD be impartial….but when you’re called an idiot by the defendant ….it just might affect your decisions
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It’s called the Bully Pulpit for a reason.
Trump’s audience is not the judiciary it is his base and the independents. Again he has a better read on America than the press or the judiciary.
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Should it though?
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Back when Obama was President, the Court told Arizona that States have NO STANDING on the issue of immigration.
Now Trump is president, and the Court says the State of Washington has STANDING on the issue of immigration.
The Courts are OUT OF CONTROL … !!!!!!
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KozJam – “The courts are out of control.” Totally agree. This is all politics.
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Immigration is a power reserved to the Federal and not State governments. All of the SC cases have consistently restated this point. With U.S. Vs Arizona being the most recent. So if they wanted to restrict immigration to single Russian women the Feds can do that.
Permanent Residece (Green Card) were never affected. The EO says “visa” . People with PR status never needed a visa to return to the U.S. All they are required to show is their “Green Card”. Some over zealous CBPOs may have acted stupidly when dealing with idiots who have “Green Cards”. They show their foreign passports without showing their Green Cards.
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Words matter….depending on WHO says them….as do their meaning.
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hi Kazjam, I think Washington’s interest (from what I understood of what their AG said) is that the ban affected students and teachers in state universities, and thus the state does have an interest.
There is a vast difference between the Federal government saying “we are (ir)reponsible for border control and not a State” and saying that a State has no interest in its employees (teachers, for example).
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“He should very nicely and quietly STFU!!”
Yup!
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“US citizens are sufficiently affected” by the order….read that again, Mish.
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One obvious way that citizens are effected is around spousal visas and family visas.
If you’re a citizen and your spouse or.other family are targeted due to overbroad filters like country of origin, your rights as a citizen are being violated.
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If your spouse is a citizen they aren’t affected, if they aren’t a citizen then they might be in a situation like this. The US spouse doesn’t confer US citizenship on a non citizen, the state does if they meet all requirements.Those requirements can and do change at times. A US citizen can’r be prevented from having a foreign spouse but that marriage isn’t a guaranteed pass into US,A north korean spouse for example probably wouldn’t get in. Comprende?
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I’m so easily confused between constitutional rights conferred upon citizens and non-citizens. This is becoming a larger issue of understanding every day as we now seem to be required to afford citizen rights even to illegals, and those here with visas are not under any jurisdiction by our government or immigration authorities either. Apparently we just can’t say NO anymore.
Further, our judicial system can apparently stop any law or executive order that creates hardship or financial loss to citizens or businesses, which completely surprises me as I was completely unaware that government actions were possible WITHOUT causing hardship and financial losses for individuals and businesses. Where can i file for a stay on government on my behalf?? Huh????
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Your argument boils down to an argument of inconvenience and not a violation of ones rights. The non-citizen spouse is still a non-citizen.
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Out of curiosity, Mish, are you trying to justify a decision by the judiciary, that is clearly indefensible, by saying they are “human”. I agree they are human, but surely they are able to read plain English.
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My position, taken long ago was that a blanket ban on permanent residents is unconstitutional. At least one court has agreed with me.
My second position is Trump is making a mistake by attacking the Judiciary. If a judge is wavering, insulting a judge just might tip the balance, even if it shouldn’t.
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Back when Obama was President, the Court told Arizona that States have NO STANDING on the issue of immigration.
Now Trump is president, and the Court says the State of Washington has STANDING on the issue of immigration.
The Courts are OUT OF CONTROL … !!!!!!
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Trump is out of control
Here is proof
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/318275-trump-offers-to-destroy-career-of-texas-state-senator-at-meeting-with
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Trump made a big mistake with that one. He seems to have shot off his mouth before he knew anything about the issue. He probably thought it was safe to agree with the police chief.
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Trump said: “Who is the state senator? Do you want to give his name? We’ll destroy his career?”
When I first heard this, I didn’t think Trump was threatening to destroy the man’s career. I took it to mean that if the senator’s name was given, would it destroy his career? It was a question: is everyone afraid to say his name because it might destroy his career? Everyone chuckled, and that was the end of it. Trump did not ask for the senator’s name a second time.
There’s different ways to look at what he said. Saw this quote before the election re Trump:
“The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”
Big difference.
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Backwardsrev.
With you on that. Can be read in several ways and the choice is that of the listener. Another example is ” you are not saying his name because you fear he will destroy your career “.
What I do not hear in it is malice.
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And you sincerely believe he actually was suggesting he would or even could destroy a senators career? Trump is the ONLY politician who has been under CONSTANT attack with the EXPRESSED purpose of destroying his career, his life, his business and family. I think it is pretty rich that anyone would consider Trump out of control for such utterance EVEN IF it were true. We have seen NO politician withstand such a withering and unending attack with NO apologies from ANYONE for it before Trump.
From my perspective Trump could be ordering IRS investigations on ALL of his enemies and I would see it as only justice. They are using every power of government, legitimate and illegitimate, against him, while impugning is ethics because he MIGHT make money from policies that improve the economy. ALL BULLSHIT!
Everyone here understands your tepid support of Trump, but I do not take it as representative of neutrality or even balance, but one of the simple distaste of being forced to choose from what you see as two equally deplorable individuals. At this point there is no NEUTRAL perspective anywhere. And if we have learned anything from progressives it is that if you desire to win, there are NO rules. The rules the progressives hang on us daily…..honesty, integrity, accountability, and the avoidance of hypocrisy, are rules they have NEVER adhered to. It is abrogation, the ability to act in direct opposition to your stated morals and values, so long as doing so advances your AGENDA. It’s about time we stopped playing by their rules.
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Mish, I sincerely respect you. You’re one of the gentlemen I read on a daily basis and I have learned an awful lot from you. But OVERALL on this issue, you are dead wrong. It is black and white how clear it is, and God help liberals if by some crazy chance someone from one of “The Seven” hits us. It won’t even matter if this EO could have stopped them. Once the amygdala gets fired up, reason goes out the window my friend.
This country is one lit match away from a bloodbath. Trump is channeling 16 years of conservatives’ pent up anger, as well as his own. Is this REALLY the issue liberals want to take him on about, when it’s one of the biggest wedge issues of the last 25 years?
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You’re wrong, as I pointed out in my comment. Being smart doesn’t compensate for not being an attorney or understanding law. For further authority, Ann Coulter..http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2017-02-08.html
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Trump is surely out of control. But we are talking about the 9th Circuit. West Coast liberals. Crazy people. Also, you assert without citing anyauthority that legal residents have protection of the constitution. Do they? Why? Does it not apply to citizens? Legal residents are NOT citizens. While his order may be overbroad and not very well thought out. I am not at all sure it is unconstitutional and I expect, contrary to your lawyer friend above that the SCOTUS result may not be 4-4. Even the liberals there are cogent enough to grant wide latitude to the executive under statutes that seem pretty clear about granting the executive authority wide latitude in the treatment of non-citizens, whatever the optics or politics of such actions.
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If you’tr out of country and your greencard expires before you get back to US of A you have some big problems pardner so being a permanent resident is a lot different than a citizen.
Spoke to a guy whose Columbian greencard father in law, a self employed contractor, got nailed for some unreported income. Not a huge amount of money, fine, no jail but he got deported and has a long wait to reapply to come back, with no guarantee of success. had lived here for decades, his family is here but big adios. He’d still be here if he’d naturalized.
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The 1952 law that Trump cited to justify his authority to ban foreigners clearly gives him the authority to do what he did. That is not to say a court would not ignore that if they chose to. Or a court could declare that law unconstitutional; in fact it would seem that if the court wants rule against Trump’s EO it would have to rule that law unconstitutional. What everyone seems to be missing is that Trump says the ban is temporary until they can figure out how to tell the good guys from the bad guys. The anti-Trumpers keep pretending it is a “muslim” ban that will continue indefinitely: a fake argument.
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Keep in mind to that the law can be perfectly constitutional, but how the executive attempts to implement the law could be horribly unconstitutional. I think that is the issue here (but don’t know for sure).
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Jon I don’t think you have read the law being cited. It clearly authorized exactly what Trump did.
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You missed my point. Congress can pass a law requiring the President to bring all resources to bear to reduce the crime rate in Chicago. That doesn’t mean the President can round up every African-American between the ages of 15 and 45 with a hoodie in the closet. The law is fine. Implementation can be unconstitutional.
But again, I am not a lawyer.
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Non-citizens who reside outside the US have no constitutional rights.
Everyone in the world is not entitled to protections under the US Constitution.
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“The law is fine. ” Sorry Jon, you have a defective argument. That law was not fine at all, it was too broad and vague and would be ruled unconstitutional. The proof of that is your example that it authorized an unconstitutional action.
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Courts are supposed to rely on precedence when looking at constitutional issues. A law that has a been in place since 1952, enforced and unchallenged in court is pretty damned strong precedence.
Now of course in an activist court, there is no such thing a precedence other than as evidence of a law’s unconstitutional nature, as we know that for activist judges interpreting a “living” document, any law or preexisting interpretation would immediately be held suspect and rejected on principle alone.
Progressivism is the necessary rejection of old thinking for new, regardless of history or even reality. Given progressives pretty much own higher education, they can also lay claim to all science and as such all progressive dogma can retain the highest scientific credibility. We should feel incredibly lucky
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The law has been used many times by Presidents, including Carter, Clinton and Obama. Foreign policy and immigration has been deemed untouchable by the Courts.
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That’s the problem though…we have no rule of law. At least the last 4 Presidents have sent us down this slippery slope to land where we are. I think what GEN Tommy Franks said about suspending the Constitution if a major crisis hit us was dead-on accurate. He may have been wrong about it being triggered by an exogenous event, I took his point as quite valid. I’m just happy I moved from out of the big city in 2009…
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Mish — with all due respect, you have a blind spot where President Trump is concerned, and it is leading you to miss the Big Picture.
President Trump’s election is related to the Brexit vote, to Duterte’s election in the Philippines, to Brazil impeaching President Rousseff, etc. We the People around the world are getting sick of incompetent, corrupt, detached elites. It is not quite rope & lamppost time yet, but it is heading in that direction.
The alternatives to the media/Democrat tempest in a teapot are:
a. President Trump succeeds in implementing Barry Obama’s plan for a temporary halt to travel from certain terrorist-involved countries.
b. The elites succeed in blocking Barry’s plan, leaving the country open to terrorist infiltration — showing how detached they are from the lives of ordinary Americans.
Either way, President Trump emerges as a big winner. And the elites (and their “running dogs”, as the Communists used to say) are one step closer to the lamppost.
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Like every other president, Trump is a human being. He will likely do some great things for much of the country. But when you are willing to break things, and Trump is, you are also likely to screw some things up big time. Applaud him when he does well and hold him to account when he doesn’t. That’s what every American should be doing. Mish is a good American.
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I second what Jon just said. I think Trump is a good American also but he will make some mistakes, especially with his brash style.
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I won’t pretend to have the knowledge to formulate an opinion. My only hope is that Trump will slow down just enough to think some of this stuff through before acting. I wouldn’t expect the Supreme Court to want to humiliate a sitting president, especially a new one. Especially Donald Trump. But hopefully they will make it painful enough that he will be more careful next time.
I know this whole thing is just fodder for the sheeple, but couldn’t he have picked at least one country that has had a terrorist attack the US? It’s embarrassing.
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A quick search turned up these 60 Afghans and Iraqis who got in the US through Mexico but where caught before they could blow anything up:
https://www.pipelinenews.org/2007/nov/26/arizona-army-base-targeted.html
Everyone knows there have been terrorist attacks by immigrants from those 7 countries in europe. What is the point of waiting until they start killing Americans?
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The 9/11 attackers came from Germany. Why not ban Germans? The Boston bombers came from Russia. Why not ban Russians? 30,000 Americans will be killed in car accidents this year. Why not ban cars?
The actual risk that any American citizen will be killed or injured by one of these people in the United States is so ridiculously small that it shouldn’t even be up for discussion.
There are millions upon millions of great people from these countries. And we are telling the good ones that we have no faith in them. So they lose confidence in us and may place it with the bad guys.
And Canada has a border with us too. Let’s hope the jihadi’s can’t read a map.
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Once someone has “legal status” and has moved here, there needs to be a valid reason, case-by-case, to block their entry in the US.
I believe the court should, and will decide just that.
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The valid reason being offerred to block entry is that of posing a potential threat due to the criteria of country of origin, the case-by-case is the new vetting procedure that will reestablish right of entry.
The question is whether the reason behind the criteria of country of origin is valid enough to block entry.
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Any greencard holder who has been out of country over 180 days can be denied reentry administratively there is no “right” to return to appeal an unfavorable administrative decision. Any greencard holder who leaves the county takes a slight risk that they may be denied reentry. A greencard is not citizenship “Lite” especially out of country, it’s not the key to the magic kingdom,
There is a final vetting before greenies qualify for citizenship and people from these 7 countries might not make the final cut.
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“The 9/11 attackers came from Germany. Why not ban Germans? The Boston bombers came from Russia. Why not ban Russians? 30,000 Americans will be killed in car accidents this year. Why not ban cars?”
With all due respect Jon, you run the risk of marginalizing yourself by making fallacious comments. Any risk to any US Citizen is of the most importance and allowing for any harm to come to them should not be taken lightly, no matter how small you may feel it is.
Given that the “millions upon millions” cannot be properly vetted from these 7 countries should give us pause until such time that proper vetting can be done.
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“The 9/11 attackers came from Germany. Why not ban Germans?” Well no, actually they were Saudi’s. I suggest you change your question to “why not ban Saudi’s?” Maybe we should.
“The Boston bombers came from Russia. Why not ban Russians?” Every nation has crazy people, including American terrorists that attack their own people. I don’t know any way to make everyone safe from violent crazy people. But there are some hot spots where there are more violent crazy people than average. Those people need more intense sorting out.
“30,000 Americans will be killed in car accidents this year. Why not ban cars?” Inappropriate straw man argument not worth a response.
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they weren’t real russians, they were cechnyans, a sometimes independent republic now subsumed into russia, wild mountain people who are muslims, the religion of peace
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It’s really kind of odd that Trump had suggested blocking ALL Muslims from entry temporarily during the campaign, yet upon taking office, moderates that to only those countries designated by Obama as countries of origin that would be threats, and he is attacked as instituting an unreasonable knee jerk, spontaneous and “harmful” ban that borders on racism is unfairly target Muslims.
And people keep saying that if Trump only moderated people (democrats and their media) would give him a break.
That’s simply hilarious!
Utilizing a law well established, to impose restrictions on Obama administration identified threats, while also having his department heads deliberately postponed preventing him from having full functioning justice and state department offices, and it is of course TRUMP that is the problem.
Right….
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CJ–gotta be careful about what you read.
The terror plot is bogus. The Washington Times article that started it said as much (though the click-baiters didn’t necessarily copy that on), and then there’s http://tucson.com/news/local/fbi-dismisses-fort-huachuca-terror-plot-story/article_b47aa113-e007-57a5-8bf4-787cf4bad3e7.html
Wise words:
“Marks said that, in general, it’s crucial to always question the validity of the sources involved.” (Retired Maj. Gen. James “Spider” Marks, served as a senior intelligence officer during the invasion of Iraq and commanded Fort Huachuca’s intelligence program from 2001 to 2004)
Sounds to me like another #NeverRemember incident.
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Jon Sellers – “It’s embarrassing.”
Why? It’s a temporary ban from countries where the U.S. CANNOT properly vet people as there is NO functional government in these countries. We’ve bombed the crap out of them, or we are using our proxies to do it.
And because we’ve bombed the crap out of them, they just might be a little angry? I mean, it’s plausible, right? Might want to take revenge?
It amazes me that people cannot see this.
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It’s strange that people who voted for Trump after knowing about his campaign promises to upgrade our vetting process to exclude those wishing to do harm to the nation and to TEMPORARILY ban entry of those from certain terrorist nations are now trashing him for fulfilling his commitments.
This is a 90 to 120 day ban until a review of the vetting process is reviewed and overhauled. I’m surprised that wasn’t mentioned by the legal guest.
We finally have a President who is determined to keep Americans safe from terrorist attacks and look at how they bash him.
At least 4 recent Presidents banned immigration from specific nations and no one questioned it. All the sudden it becomes a SCOTUS matter. ha.
This is pure political harassment of Trump.
The liberals can’t get over their loss.
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LFOldTimer – “The liberals can’t get over their loss.” That’s exactly what this is, pure politics.
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Everybody lost. Some just don’t know it yet.
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anyone who filters terrorist actions by US based individuals using Samolia will come up with many references of them trying to get over to Syria or succeeding to support ISIS
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As a constitutional lawyer who has won a case in SCOTUS, I think the case on the merits (currently it is only a TRO) is rather simple with respect to anyone who is not a US citizen. If the Court goes wobbly, they might include green card holders….Congress has exclusive jurisdiction over immigration and naturalization, and has delegated part of that to the President. That delegation gives the President total discretion when he finds national security is impacted in any way. So Trump’s actions (which don’t even mention muslims) are clearly authorized. Backing that up are Carter’s halt to all travel with Iran in 1979, including citizens, and subsequent identification and deportation of many Iranian students.
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I agree this is (or should be) essentially a green-card issue, even if we are on opposite sides of it.
But with Trump attacking the courts, and with Trump’s statements on Muslims, it is not an open and shut case on anything
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Trump is not a politician and like a tiger, will never be able to change his stripes. He has led a business life of always winning and fighting back. About time someone on our side defends and fights for us.
Trump is totally misunderstood by those that oppose him. Only his followers revel in what is a daily delight.
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This has nothing to do with being misunderstood.
It is constitutional or not.
And that threat to the Texas senator was idiotic
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The law the President cited includes nothing about “prior statements” he or anyone else may have made as nullifying the President’s authority (and obligation) to do what he believes is necessary to protect US citizens. One of his other statements is the fact that in the past two weeks he has learned much about the threats (through classified briefings) to the US and he decided that the threats were sufficiently serious enough that they needed to be dealt with. Of course, he cannot reveal the details of the threats or the sources of his information without putting those sources in jeopardy, but he can cite the prior identification of these 7 countries by the Obama administration and Congress as potential sources of terrorist activity directed against the US homeland. He does not have to “prove it” and it does not matter whether or not any terrorist from any of those countries has been involved in attacks on US soil or whether terrorists have come from countries other than those 7. There are at least 3 incidents involving terroristic activity by persons in the US from those countries.
The President has complete and unfettered authority and responsibility to issue these orders as long as he is not in violation of laws which don’t allow him to discriminate based on religion or race. And he has the precedent of Carter’s ban (and deportation) of Iranians.
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Adding that the law explicitly states ‘aliens’, definition of which is any person who is not a US citizen. Green card holders are aliens, non-citizen spouses of US citizens are aliens. It is black and white, it is discriminatory, it is law, designed to protect US citizens as a whole, no matter their colour or race or religion.
The decision on to what degree the filter is applied is in the hands of the president, of the executive, unless you prove that its implementation is unconstitutional.
Why do you blame Trump. If resident green card holders are stripped of their permits and expelled, or spouses of US citizens denied entry, your only claim is against the consistency of US policy and the effects it may have on certain individuals. That is NOT an issue that is encompassed in constitutional law. Rights of aliens, resident or abroad, are encompassed in the constitution, and I do not believe there exists an automatic right to entry or residence written in.
So if you want to look at the effects and sources of change in US policy on the grounds of consistency, how those perturb certain people, you will have to study and present a thousand page essay as introduction to how US policy arrived at the decisions previously in existence, and justify why they are ‘ right ‘.
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any greencard holder who leaves the country takes a chance, normally small, that he will not be readmitted or that the rules might change while he’s out of country, at that point it’s all administrative, baby! No “right” to return to US courts to appeal unfavorable administrative decision made out of country, shit outta luck
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SOL
How stupid
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Mish, it must be terribly disappointing that you blog attracts so many stupid and ignorant comments….by your own definition. It’s almost like a lot of us are deplorable.
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I read some of the comments on other articles, and the comments on Mishtalk are some of the most reasonable I have seen. Unfortunately that’s not saying much, some of the other article comments are so profane I cannot believe they are allowed.
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Supposedly, this executive order was vetted as legal by the DOJ, but considering their relative percentage of donations to the Hildabeast vs Trump, I could easily see them not taking much care in that vetting without even considering their possible level of incompetence.
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Trump should not have gone after Green card aliens or those in transit. He should have stayed with ‘anyone from a country we have recently bombed extensively’.. His defense should have been strictly ‘law entrusts the decision tot eh President’ and ‘you may say that the President is hiding under his bed afraid of his own shadow’ but he is the President and as there is a rational basis he gets to decide.
A few economic readers will recall a Federal Court overruling President Carter invoking the Taft-Hartley act, on the grounds that there was no national emergency. But here there really are people with grudges.
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Trump’s order will go to the Supreme Court who will approve it. The Court will then be immediately ridiculed by the MSM as “so-called Judges”.
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perhaps – perhaps not
You don’t know – nor does anyone else
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Simply the fact that Saudi Arabia was left out of this order totally delegitimizes it. The bad guys are the salafists but they continue to be close allies. This is more schizophrenic foreign policy.
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They’re left off because the Saudis can identify people and they chop heads off terrorists. These other countries either cannot or can’t be trusted (Iran) to identify terrorists.
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The Saudis chop off the heads of internal dissenters but they finance terrorists.
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M.D. – but the U.S. has been helping Saudi Arabia to finance the terrorists. The U.S. has been funding, training and arming the terrorists. Saudi Arabia and the U.S. were in this together; therefore, Saudis wouldn’t be angry at the U.S. and want to cause mischief. Why would you want to hurt your ally?
But the Libyans, the Syrians, and the Iranians (because the U.S. has been stupidly singling them out as an enemy), the Iraqis – people coming from these countries could really be holding a lot of hate against the U.S. and want to do it damage.
Plus, these countries do not have functional governments at the moment. They’ve been destroyed.
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Bingo.
Additionally, the 7 nations themselves have corrupt or no government in place to vet their own people. Why shouldn’t we be halting the process and place the necessary measures in place?
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Osama bin Laden was a Saudi. If the Saudi gov’t chops off the heads of terrorists, they aren’t doing a very good job identifying them.
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The point is that the Saudis do not chop off the heads of terrorists. They finance them! Do not be like the 99% who are clueless.
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M.D. – “They finance them!” Yeah, and so does the U.S., Israel, the other gulf states, the EU. They are an ally (stupidly), and they are carrying out what we tell them to do: take out seven countries in 5 years. Listen to General Wesley Clark explain it:
The countries that Trump has put on the list (Obama’s list) are countries that have a very good reason to hate the West because they’ve been bombed off the face of the Earth.
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His GODDAMNED SECOND WEEK!
People are simultaneously freaking out because he is acting too quickly without consideration of every snowflake before hand, and then at the same time extolling his absolute FAILURE because he failed to close immigration to ALL Muslim nations or at least SA, cut taxes, end Obamacare, imprison Hillary or endless others.
SECOND DAMNED WEEK!
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M.D. – Saudi Arabia are bad, but they are an ally, and the West has been helping them fund, train and arm ISIS. Up until very recently, Saudi Arabia, along with the other gulf states who were funding ISIS, had been winning in Syria. They were happy about that, and so were their citizens. Why would happy people want to come to the States to exact revenge? They wouldn’t. We were their allies.
Now they are losing in Syria, and if Trump helps Russia fight ISIS and pounds them back into the Stone Age, the Saudis would lose and might be very angry about that. If that happens, Trump would be adding Saudi Arabia and all of the gulf states to the list as well.
Think of it this way: who have we been bombing and who is angry about that? Who has a functional government? I doubt Syria would do this, but if some clerk were angry enough at the U.S. (if there is still a functioning government office), he might tell the U.S. that, yes, so and so has been a fine upstanding citizen, when in fact he’s been a terrorist.
Who does the U.S. trust with information on potential refugees and immigrants? A country that hates the West, wants to do it harm? That’s what you’re asking for.
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He exposed the judiciary as totally partisan.
His opponents are on the hook for possible terrorist attacks for decades (most Muslim terrorists in the US are children of immigrants and refugees)
A Muslim ban is now favored in Europe
Next time there is a terror attack, people will discuss whether now is the time for a Muslim ban.
And this is all a setup to deporting 10 million or more illegal aliens.
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Mish I enjoy your blog very much. However, I enjoy the comments of most Trump supporters even more. They remind me of those old movies about the Roman empire. Specially the part were people are being sent to the circus to be eaten by lions or dismembered by gladiators. The Trump supporters are exactly like the circus audience. You know cheering and screaming when blood was running free in the middle of the arena and asking for more. Of course Nero will always be willing to provide more and more entertainment to his adoring subjects until at the end the Rome burns… Nero used the circus Trump twitter. It is always bread and circus at the end
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We Trump supporters are actually agreeing with him to PREVENT blood running in the streets. Or night clubs. Or at Christmas parties. Answer me this: Why are you all of a sudden so interested in people from those 7 countries? Trump opponents are marching in the streets by the thousands with signs saying “Welcome Potential Terrorists”. Idiots.
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Because unlike you, I know that on that list are not the countries that had provided not only terrorist but also has used their school system to hate all westerners. The reason that those countries are not on that list is money and nothing else.
You all talk about “elites” and yet don’t notice that Trump is surrounded by nothing but elites (from the billionaire class) that he picked and is supported by a republican congress that is the who is who in elites.
Trump supporters are not motivated by any desire of change for the good. Their interest is what my post indicates. They want to see the “liberals” scream in mental anguish. Like I said Trump supporters enjoy like circus goers of the past when their “enemies” (all those liberals) are taken to the arena to be ridicule and sacrifice to his all infallible Emperor. Most of you have relinquish your right to self determination to your emperor.
BTW a nation can only be “great” (whatever that means) if its population as a whole is great or aspires to greatness. I don’t see Trump or his supporters as greatness material.
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Rand Paul is/was an eye doctor. Is that an elite? Or is he an elite because he’s a senator, and senators are all elites. That would be a circular argument.
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Carlos. The Saudis are embedded in Washington, money yes – not necessarily to Trumps liking, also geo and economic strategy. Something to watch, but not a reality he would try to tackle straight off even if he wanted to.
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Carlos, you seem to equate elites with wealth and success, whereas for most conservatives the elites we identify are those who are peer reviewed professorial “experts” who through their close knit organization of like minded “educators” have conjured and defined a new science of economics and science that defy common sense, history and true public consensus.
The elites we see are those who have accomplished nothing outside the ranks of academia but clearly see themselves AS elites in the sense that it is their OBLIGATION to lead, direct, indoctrinate, manipulate and even FORCE us to do what THEY believe is in our best interest.
You on the other hand, seem to believe that a country who is wealthy beyond all others due to CAPITALISM, as corrupted and distorted as it may be, will be somehow damaged by having those who have actually DONE IT, who have worked and succeeded against all odds, who have seen and in some cases participated in the crony crap that has infected our system are somehow incapable of actually making this damned thing work again.
I’m sure all we need is Larry Summers and Robert Reich running things and everything would be simply marvelous.
How about we give this a whirl and just SEE what happens?
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Well I’m not a US citizen and so come from a different perspective really, but as they say, all opinion is biased. Either way, you could exclude feeling menaced by foreigners in the US as a concern of mine given I do not live there, and so my interest is whether Trump is within his power and duty, as well as watching how his choices echo through the remnants of the old administration, and society as a whole. I think Trump is within his right, I think he is challenging and goading even, the slack in the system. He is showing priority and forging hierarchy where it was missing, he is saying ‘this is the order now’. Unfair, just using one theme for effect, disorganized, or long overdue / informed and urgent? There is no way to judge without a detailed personal reasoning being provided, something we will not have beyond the squared presentation that accompanies the order. It is a choice and a direction.
I have the impression that it changes the view for migrants, no longer is it finding one way or another to the US, but knowing now that at a certain point the buck stops, and there is someone in power who will make sure it does, who is making it his responsibility that it does, and being willing to take responsibility for that being so.
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Granted, it is good to challenge the status quo. But challenging without thinking thru is childish. My son in law visualizes mentally up to 8 moves ahead at chess. Naturally he is near the top in the industry of finance.
Trump is a gifted salesman. I do not think that he is a good strategist.
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Maybe, but he occupies a public position, and the public who elected him might well prefer someone blunt but present, that knowing how the Gordian knot was finally undone. We just cannot expect to have everything all ways.
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And why are great chess players not ruling the world?
There is no doubt that intelligence and analytical thought are important, but once enough variables are introduced, something deeper may come into play. It would be easy to suggest that success can just be luck, but there are lots of people good at business and more importantly dealing with people and multiple variables…unknowable variables. Chess is a board game. Life, and for sure this world, are NOT.
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carlos, I agree with you, but the US version of a Roman Republic to Empire transformation will be more cost effective: less bread, more circus.
Gorsuch nomination: Trump asks “Was that a surprise — was it?”
Small wonder why Alec Baldwin, doing a Trump impersonation, went with the equivalent, classic movie line:
“Are you not entertained?” — Maximus Decimus Meridius in “Gladiator”
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Carlos and Czarchasm – it was the liberals who had the rest of the country in the arena, not the other way around.
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Arguing the merits of legality of the order is completely beside the point. The goal was to rile up liberal opposition to give Trump the ability to thumb his nose at them and energize his base.
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Actually, the brazen unconstitutionality of the executive orders is a feature, not a mistake. The brazen nature of the executive orders that fly in the face of constitutional law makes it even easier for Trump to demonstrate his willingness to upset the status quo and do whatever it takes.
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Michael how are Trump’s EOs and particularly the one under discussion here brazenly unconstitutional? You did not say and it certainly is not obvious to me so please share your secret. I think many of Obama’s EO’s were unconstitutional but sadly the repubs did not challenge them, although some conservative groups are. I think forcing Americans to buy health insurance when they don’t need or want it is pretty obviously unconstitutional, but 5 of 9 Supremes thought otherwise. It’s not the first time the SCOTUS has been wrong.
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I can hardly believe it, but Trump’s going to win this one on appeal.
Just incredible.
Federal Immigration Code 1182 Sec. (f) :
“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.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182
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Yes Germ that is the 1952 law I mentioned at 3;31 in this comment thread, thank you for copying the whole thing here I don’t think a lot of people are aware of it. Nonetheless as I said, a court can ignore it or declare that law to be unconstitutional. Many many times courts have ruled in ways that contradict the law. So, we’ll see.
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And I posted the same a while back.
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Germ,
Its real. The court was wrong to halt the action. Trump is right.
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“Judges are supposed to rule on the merits of cases, but they are human”.
Seems this is a good place and a good reason for robot technology.
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Somewhat related related to this issue: Trump’s criticism of the judiciary not going well at all: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-08/trumps-supreme-court-pick-gorsuch-disheartened-demoralized-presidents-comments
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A Dem Senator asks a Supreme Court NOMINEE what he thinks and then spills the content of the private conversation. What else would you expect from both sides of that conversation?
On the 9th Circuit Court in general:
The Atlantic, Feb 4, 2016
“The Ninth Circuit is by far the most overturned and overburdened court in the country, with a 77 percent reversal rate…”
‘Liberal’ Reputation Precedes Ninth Circuit Court
NYT, April 24, 2010
“Outside experts who have examined the circuit for quantitative evidence of its leanings say that over all, it is indeed the most liberal circuit — but not by all that much.”
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Maybe they will be getting tired (or embarrassed) of having their rulings overturned so often? I don’t think that factoid would look very good in their bios.
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Maybe Trump should call Gorsuch and ask him if he’s still interested in the job.
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What were Obama’s policies in Trump’s banned countries?
The hypocrisy is killing me!
2min 30sec
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Its time we review history in light of Trump:
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The funny thing is, “The Madness of King George” was originally to be called “The Madness of King George III”.
But, it wasn’t called “The Madness of King George III” as it was believed Americans would not go and see it if they hadn’t yet seen the first two films in the series :-))
True story!
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ha ha, I believe that!
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Go ahead, destroy your neighbor’s house, and then I dare you to invite him over for Xmas drinks. Do you think he’s going to be angry at you?
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“Is that a trick question?”
~ One of my favorite movie quotes, by Bill Murray in Ghostbusters., when Sigourney Weaver asked him “Do you want this body?”
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CJ – good one! Love Bill Murray in Groundhog Day too.
Yeah, no trick about it. These guys would naturally be hopping mad at what has happened to their countries, so Trump is well within his right to protect U.S. citizens. While trying to gain entry, they’re not going to be forthcoming about their anger, but I don’t think it would take much to send a few of these people over the edge.
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Whaaaaat..?? You don’t think the jihadi’s coming in would truthfully answer the question: “Are you a jihadi?:…..Have you not faith in your fellow man..???
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BWR the town square in Groundhog Day was filmed a few miles from where Mish lives (Woodstock IL).
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Mish, you are way out of your depth here. It is pretty straight forward:
Federal Immigration Code 1182 Sec. (f)
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That has been covered quite a bit in the comments here already.
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Being human is no excuse for being corrupt or politicizing the law. Our judicial system has become just as corrupt as the other branches of govt. Trump should scream it from the Twitter mountaintop. The TEMPORARY ban is on countries, not religions. If it was he would have included Indonesia. It does not include those with visas and green cards. Was the ban implemented properly? No, how could it be when all you have are bureaucrats to do the work?
We cannot get on a plane without taking off our shoes and belts, or having a bottle of water because they assume we are terrorist. Yet there should be open borders and no verification for people coming from the countries where terrorism is flourishing? Who should be inconvenienced while we wait for politicians to get their head out of their ass. Even the socialist French are figuring this out.
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Judges impartial? Oh, I get it,,,that must be the reason for all the Supreme Court rulings divided along the party lines of whom they were appointed by?
Get real,,,politics plays into all decisions made by people in power.
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Exactly exactly exactly. Any person in state who is authorised to make a decision for you or over you or to do with you has at the very least a subscription and due to the political world. From the lowest to the highest.
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Mish, your disdain for Trump betrays your ignorance. Trump is calling it like it is as usual. Most of our “so called” judges are not fair or open-minded. The 9th circuit court, for example, is the most overturned court in the country by far (86%). As a matter of fact, legislation has recently been introduced to break-up the 9th circuit (or 9th ‘circus’ as it is often called).
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You should be better informed on the facts before posting on this blog.
On Feb 1, Donald McGahn, counsel to the President wrote a memo clarifying that the EO doesn’t apply to lawful permanent residents. Thus, the first paragraph of your quote is moot.
The rest of quote of the lawyer is meaningless gobbledygook. He is essentially saying it could go either way. What kind of opinion is that?
Visa holders not in the country have no constitutional rights. Plan and simple. No one else has the right to assert the rights of those visa holders or potential visa holders. They simply have no standing. Without standing, no relief is possible. The court has no jurisdiction.
The decision of the judge in WA is a joke. The opinion has no analysis and essentially says that a TRO is proper because it is proper. How is the 9th Circuit to review that type of reasoning?
Unfortunately, this case is typical where a judge decides how he wants to rule and then distorts the facts and law to make them fit his decision. I expect the 9th Circuit to do the same.
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Dear experienced lawyer
I would put my guy up against you 7 days a week.
I just cannot name him but he graduated top of Harvard and is a partner with a very prestigious firm.
By the way, if you expect the 9th Circuit to distort the facts, then what does that say about your cock-sure analysis.
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An opinion is only as valid as the facts relied on to support the opinion. Either your friend gave the opinion prior to the February 1 memo, in which case it is irrelevant as outdated, or it was after and he didn’t consider it, in which case it is inadequate and irrelevant. In either case, you do a disservice to your readers.
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Forgot to add that the 9th Circuit is the most reversed in the country, confirming they distort the law or facts to reach the decision they want.
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experienced,
your analysis is clear and understandable, thanks.
The original post reminded me of the late Prof Irwin Corey
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I’m wondering who Trump asked that said that they couldn’t even give a week’s notice of the ban or bad people would come pouring in. Sounds like an imbecile.
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Maybe Trump didn’t want to give a heads up to a group that included suspected terrorists. Duuuh
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Do you really think someone from Iran, or Somalia can get a visa in a week?
How long does green card processing take? Do you think it’s an online form that takes a few minutes to process?
How long does it take for asylum seekers to get in?
Duh, indeed.
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I understand that visas take more than a week and I’m sure you’re aware a green card can’t be obtained overseas. So here’s a duuh back on that.
Those with visas and greencards overseas were shut out without a warning, maybe there were valid reasons. Student visas have been abused for years – think Boston Bomber. Maybe the authorities wanted to do a little extra vetting of people with student visas from these badlands. Fiancee visas too, think San Bernadino killer Paki bride.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/07/boston-probe-problems-student-visa-overstays.html
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Hi JC. I take it by your first sentence that you agree that a 1 week notice to DHS employees to get things in order and think things through would have been both reasonable and smart. Even 1 day of thought would have done wonders.
(e.g,. yeah, let’s let those two Iraqis that served as military translators in without trouble, let’s not handcuff the children, etc)
As for the second paragraph, I’ll start with Green card holders.
Green card holders, we are told by the US government, are allowed the protection of US laws, including the Constitutional right to due process. (https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/after-green-card-granted/rights-and-responsibilities-permanent-resident/rights-and-responsibilities-green-card-holder-permanent-resident). They should have been allowed back in without any fuss, and that should have been part of the EO, or clarified immediately so as to avoid confusion. And as of Feb 1, they were because, duh. Apparently, no one in the Administration had taken the time to ask.
Regarding student visas, I definitely agree that the abuse of student visas is a problem, if for no other reason than it mocks us as a nation of law.
No visa holder, student or otherwise, should be admitted back into the US with an expired Visa. No Visa holder should be allowed to over-stay. Something like 4.5M people are here overstaying a Visa. That’s not right, but the ban wouldn’t have touched that problem.
Getting back in with a clearly expired visa is difficult. The Boston Bomber’s student visa was invalid because he was no longer a student, but the Immigration systems didn’t know it. It was not; however, expired.
They apparently fixed that loophole after the Boston bombing with more vetting. [http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/03/nation/la-na-boston-bombings-20130504 , http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-22409193%5D.
That won’t help us track down the 4.5M overstays.
As for whether giving DHS one week to prepare would have triggered an unusual influx of student visa holders to come back in. Give me 30 seconds to think: have the ban apply to anyone that books travel after the EO was signed. The one week warning still works. No thunderstorm of bad people would get in.
That would still leave potential for bad guys coming in on student visas that are here legally. But now it’s time to bring up the sheer horrifying number of terrorist attacks on US soil by people from the 7 countries that were banned. 0. So, that’s not a problem.
And if you still think it were a problem to wait a week, why didn’t the President think it was a problem? Why did the president wait so long to sign the EO? He took office on Jan 20, and waited until Jan 27 (well after most schools had started session) to sign the ban. He had 3 months for a staffer to prepare the EO. It wasn’t a surprise, this is something he’s been promising for more than a year. He had time to tweet about crowd sizes. He didn’t write (or probably read) the EO. He just signed it. If it were really urgent, he could have had it waiting for him to sign on Day 0 (since Day 1 was Monday, 3 days into his presidency).
Next on to the H1-K visa holder (wife/co conspirator). No matter how much vetting you do of Yemen, you’re not going to catch the Pakistani wife of a US natural born citizen. Not going to happen. And one week prep time won’t affect that one bit. And yes, country of origin is critically important if we’re trying to really catch radical Islamic terrorists.
I’m not opposed to the ban. I’m opposed to how poorly it was done, the protest-arousing confusion at the airports, the lack of any apparent thought beyond the immediate political theater (let’s used Obama’s list of countries), applying it to Green card holders for a while, provoking headlines unnecessarily (e.g., Iraqi translators), not including the more likely sources of terror (Pakistan, Saudi based on history), etc.
They didn’t think it through, and the person who advised Trump that bad guys would come pouring though? Imbecile.
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Hindsight is 20/20. This is a big problem in our country that will have lots of bumps on the way to repair. I am giving anyone who attempts to fix this lots of leeway to make some mistakes along the way.
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The trouble with that excuse is that the headlines were easily foreseeable if they had thought about what they were doing.
They just didn’t care.
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respond – I’m with seenitallbefore. Trump needs time and a ton of leeway because he is actually trying to change things for the better. But the liberals, who are still unhappy that they lost the election, are going to go after him on everything because they’d really like to see him removed, impeached, assassinated or run over by a bus. Taking lots of that Soros money.
If you’re looking for the downfall of the country, look no further than the cry baby protesters who started the mess in the first place.
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“needs time and a ton of leeway”
that’s my point. 3 months (Nov-Jan) is enough time for them to work out some of the really basic stuff (e.g., green card holders being allowed in). They didn’t bother.
wait wait wait PANIC
As for leeway, sure, if it’s on something that’s urgent and unavoidable (like how to respond to 9/11). But not much else. In the words of our President, either you match up to the demands of the job or “You’re Fired!” Especially not for something as simple as this EO.
I’m surprised you feel protests will cause the downfall of this country (that’d surprise Crispus Attucks for sure!), or think that it was the airport protests that reached backwards and time and caused the “if we wait a week bad guys will come pouring in” hysteria. I heard it was Delta airlines system problems that caused all the ruckus.
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Mish, did it ever occur to you that Trump is creating the conflict with the judiciary branch intentionally?
The courts are part of the “checks and balances”, but they are exerting political power (arguably) far beyond their mandate.
By creating this conflict, Trump can move the power balance in his favor, especially if he *loses*, but still manages to enforce the ban, either directly or indirectly through other executive actions.
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Excerpts:
On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz stated that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling against President Trump’s immigration order is “not a solid decision.” And “looks like it’s based more on policy than on constitutionality.”
Dershowitz said, “Look, this is not a solid decision. This is a decision that looks like it’s based more on policy than on constitutionality. There are many, many flaws.”
He added, “I think this court opinion will not ultimately be sustained by the Supreme Court. Take, for example, the argument that it’s an establishment of religion, because it favors Christians or other religious minorities. In 1944 we passed the War Refugee Act, which specifically was designed to rescue a hundred thousand Jews, and everybody knew the purpose was to rescue Jews. That didn’t establish Judaism as the state religion of the United States. I think the establishment argument will fail in the Supreme Court. I think the standing arguments may fail in the Supreme Court.”
Thursday on the Fox News Channel, in reacting to the 9th Circuit Court ruling upholding the blocking of President Trump‘s executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, network senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano called the ruling “an intellectually dishonest piece of work.”
Napolitano said, “The statute specifically says the president on his own, by proclamation, meaning he doesn’t have to consult with anybody else, can make the decision. The decision to ban is not reviewable. Judges are incapable of second-guessing the president on it. For that reason, he may be thinking the Supreme Court is going to invalidate it.”
“I don’t know which way the Supreme Court is going to go and I don’t know which court he had in mind, but this is an intellectually dishonest piece of work the 9th Circuit has produced tonight because it essentially consists of substituting the judgment of three judges for the President of the United States when the Constitution unambiguously gives this area of jurisdiction, foreign policy, exclusively to the president,” he added.
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February 10, 2017
The Law That Never Was
By Allan J. Favish, attorney
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/02/the_law_that_never_was.html
Excerpt:
The key point for everybody to know about the United States Court Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s opinion regarding President Donald Trump’s Executive Order regarding immigration, is that the three judges failed to discuss, or even acknowledge the existence of, the primary law that supports President Trump’s Executive Order.
Their duty was to interpret and apply the law, specifically, 8 U.S.C. sec. 1182(f). If they believed that the law did not apply here, they had a duty to explain why. If they believed that the law was unconstitutional, they had a duty to explain why.
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2 words. 9th Circuit. Enough said.
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February 10, 2017
A legal analysis of the Ninth Circuit’s dangerous usurpation of presidential power
By Ed Straker, attorney
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/02/a_legal_analysis_of_the_ninth_circuits_dangerous_usurpation_of_presidential_power.html
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Is there any point in time that we need to stop allowing people to come into our country?
Is there some number you might have in mind?
Look at the unemployment numbers. Businesses did and are doing well.
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