The 9th Circuit makes the right call on Trump's travel ban - WaPo Editorial Board
By Editorial Board February 10 at 6:52 PM
IT IS possible to debate whether President Trump’s immigration executive order was callous and counterproductive, as we believe it was. But there is no question that its rollout was sloppy and arrogant — and that includes the legal defense the government mounted when inevitably challenged in court. Four federal judges have now rejected several untenable claims the Trump administration made, and rightfully so.
A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled Thursday that the Trump administration’s restrictions on travel from seven majority-Muslim countries will remain on ice while the courts work through whether the restrictions are legal. This is only the beginning of a long battle, but there are a few arguments the judges dispensed with upfront.
For example, the government argued that the president has “unreviewable authority to suspend the admission of any class of aliens.” The court easily batted down this dangerous contention: “There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy,” the panel wrote. “Although courts owe considerable deference to the President’s policy determinations with respect to immigration and national security, it is beyond question that the federal judiciary retains the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges to executive action.”
In short: Mr. Trump needs to accept that he cannot rule by decree, without regard for judicial checks. The courts can and must block him when he overreaches, especially on matters of civil liberty and national security.
The government also argued that the court should ignore a glaring problem with the president’s executive order — that it appeared to apply to green-card holders and others with legal status that rightly led them to expect that they would be able to travel into and out of the United States — because the White House counsel’s office later issued an “authoritative guidance” lifting restrictions from lawful permanent residents.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-9th-circuit-makes-the-right-call-on-trumps-travel-ban/2017/02/10/22ca40e4-efbb-11e6-9662-6eedf1627882_story.html?utm_term=.347078c2f028&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1