The Media Are Wrong — Court's Decision On Trump's Temporary Travel Ban Is A Big Victory
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The Media Are Wrong — Court's Decision On Trump's Temporary Travel Ban Is A Big Victory
6:37 PM ET
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Travel Ban: The Supreme Court's decision to reinstate the travel limits President Trump imposed on six countries with major terrorist activity was described by the media as a "partial" win and "narrow." In fact, it's a major victory, one that is highly likely to be upheld after a full hearing on the issue in October.
True enough, the high court only temporarily overturned lower-court rulings against the temporary suspension of entry into the U.S. by people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. And it slightly altered Trump's order to exclude those with a "credible claim of bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States."
The ban will be allowed for 90 days while the court prepares to hear full arguments in October. After that, it seems likely the court will reverse earlier decisions by the Richmond, Va., appellate court, which asserted that Trump's travel ban was "rooted in religious animus" against Muslims, and by the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which claimed Trump's ban constituted "nationality-based" discrimination.
Bizarrely, both appeals courts seemed to base their opposition on comments made by Trump during the campaign, before he even became president, an unprecedented and dangerous legal precedent for future chief executives of both parties. This is judicial activism of the worst kind, and should not stand.
For the record, the temporary overturning of the ban was unanimous. Not surprisingly, three conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — said the ban should be reinstated entirely right away.
They have both the law and precedent on their side. When the final decision is rendered in October, anything short of a total vindication of a president's right to protect our borders would endanger the U.S. and further blur the Constitution's separation of powers.
The fact is, President Trump has clear, incontestable authority under both U.S. law and by precedent to impose the ban.
As Trump himself said Monday: "Today's unanimous Supreme Court decision is a clear victory for our national security. ... As president, I cannot allow people into our country who want to do us harm."
The law says he's right. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, any president has the authority to "suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants." The language is clear and unambiguous.
Moreover, a report from the Congressional Research Service in January noted that the president's authority to ban immigrants from specific nations temporarily on national security grounds has ample precedent in past U.S. presidents' actions — and, yes, that includes one Barack Obama.
In 2011, President Obama ordered a temporary suspension of refugees and some other visa holders from Iraq from entering the U.S. The CRS notes that Obama used his immigration-control authority more than any other recent American president: 19 times.
President George W. Bush used it six times, while Bill Clinton invoked it 12 times. George H.W. Bush used it just once, and President Reagan only five times in eight years.
Liberal critics claim that those past invocations of presidential immigration control powers involved "targeted" use, not a broad-based approach such as Trump's. But in fact, in none of those presidencies was the general, and widespread, threat of direct terrorist action been as great as it is today.
Banning people who live in countries that are havens for terrorism from coming to the U.S. only makes sense. Any president who failed to protect American lives and property from potential terrorists would be derelict.
Of course, we can always be surprised by a Supreme Court decision. But we'd be truly shocked if the court didn't overturn the challenge to Trump's travel ban. After all, the Constitution, presidential tradition and precedent, and simple common sense all argue strongly for overturning these foolish lower-court challenges to presidential power.
As for the media, who by their coverage and commentary would seem to be quietly rooting for Trump's ban to be overturned by the full court or neutered beyond recognition: Get real. Just like everyone else, liberal justices have no desire to be blown up by terrorists.
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Law Takes A Holiday http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-media-are-wrong-courts-decision-on-trumps-temporary-travel-ban-is-a-big-victory/
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This is good news. America will benefit from the courts action.
Interesting article. There isnt a word in it that explains how this court action was a "big victory" for Trump as opposed to say, a partial victory.
I can help you NBC explained that here.
Here's a liberal law professor:
Take note of the whole thing. The whole thing is on point.
"Yet, his signature attacks often cause people to fulfill the very stereotypes that he paints, particularly among some reporters and judges. Ironically, Trump’s attacks on the media as biased may not have been true at the outset but they are true now. Mainstream media have become openly hostile to Trump.
The Supreme Court’s decision is consistent with this long-standing precedent. In fairness to the courts and some commentators, there are good-faith reasons to argue against the travel order. Indeed, I predicted at the outset that there would be conflicting decisions in the courts. However, it was the tenor and basis for the decisions that I found disturbing. Courts that once gave President Obama sweeping discretion in the immigration field seemed categorically opposed to considering the same accommodation for President Trump. For commentators, viewers were given a highly distorted view of the existing law — brushing aside decades of cases while supporting the notion that a major federal policy could live or die by the tweet.
The Supreme Court’s stay should cause an examination of more than the lower court decisions. It should concentrate minds in both the courts and the media on the loss of objectivity in analysis over the “immigration ban.” There seemed an inability to separate the policy from the personality in this controversy. That is a serious problem for both institutions. Injunctions come and go. Yet, integrity and objectivity are things that, once lost, are hard to regain."
That the Supreme Court at least remains rationale and open to deciding is cases on the merits is a huge legal and political win for the Trump administration. Despite almost unprecedented level of hysteria and outrage from the media, the Court granted Trump a unanimous victory on part of the ban and essentially signaled it will grant him a complete victory in October, if it reaches the merits of the case.
I look at Turley's blog fairly regularly. He is not a liberal.
Yes he is.