Trump urges tougher US travel ban

‘This bloodshed will end’

WASHINGTON, June 5: US President Donald Trump urged his administration to seek a tougher version of his controversial travel ban proposal on Monday following a weekend attack in London, and pressed for an expedited judicial review by the nation’s top court.

Trump’s comments, made in early tweets on Monday, could weigh on his administration’s emergency request last week asking the US Supreme Court to reinstate his travel ban on people entering the United States from six predominantly Muslim countries.

“The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original travel ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to SC,” tweeted Trump, referring to the US Supreme Court.

“The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down travel ban before the Supreme Court - & seek much tougher version!” Trump, who as president oversees the department, said in another tweet.

Late Thursday, Trump’s legal team asked the court to allow his controversial March 6 executive order for the travel ban to take effect immediately, despite being blocked by lower courts. The Supreme Court rarely grants emergency requests.

The Republican president has said his proposed ban, a centerpiece of his 2016 presidential campaign, is necessary to protect Americans from terrorist attacks. Critics have assailed the ban as discriminatory and his reasoning for it as flawed.

“The President’s tweets may help encourage his base, but they can’t help him in court,” said Jonathan Adler, a professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

At issue before the top court is whether the travel curbs violate the US Constitution’s ban on religious discrimination by targeting Muslims. Justice Department lawyers have argued that their revised executive order is substantially different from the first one issued in January.

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at The George Washington University who has said the administration’s immigration order is legal, said Trump’s references to it as a “travel ban” in his tweets undermine the justice department’s defense of it.

“Ironically, it makes more difficult the very thing that Trump was demanding: the reinstatement of his immigration order,” Turley said.

US Senator Ben Cardin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who opposes the ban, said on Monday Trump’s tweets on the issue “clearly shows his intent” and his disdain for the judicial branch.

“The courts have ruled, and the courts said this abused the executive powers. His lawyers tried to justify it by saying it wasn’t a travel ban, that it was just extreme vetting,” Cardin told CNN. “The president’s made that very clear: it is a travel ban.”

Challenges

Legal challenges to the ban, including by the ACLU and Hawaii, reject the administration’s claim that urgent action is needed to protect Americans from terrorist attacks. They also note the government had not ask the Supreme Court to intervene earlier, when lower courts denied emergency applications seeking to lift the injunctions against the travel curbs.

Trump says he will do whatever is necessary to protect the United States from a “vile enemy” that he says has waged war on innocents for too long, vowing: “This bloodshed must end, this bloodshed will end.”

Trump commented on the vehicle and knife attack that killed at least seven people in London at the conclusion of a Sunday night fundraiser for Ford’s Theater, scene of one of the most famous acts of bloodshed in American history: the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

“America sends our thoughts and prayers and our deepest sympathies to the victims of this evil slaughter and we renew our resolve, stronger than ever before, to protect the United States and its allies from a vile enemy that has waged war on innocent life, and it’s gone on too long,” Trump said in his first comments in public on the attack late Saturday in a busy section of London. He previously had commented via a series of Twitter posts.

“As president, I will do what is necessary to prevent this threat from spreading to our shores and work every single day to protect the safety and security of our country, our communities and our people,” he said.

Trump said he had spoken with British Prime Minister Theresa May to express America’s “unwavering support” and offer US assistance as the British government works to protect its citizens and bring the guilty to justice.

After more than 20 people were killed in a bomb attack last month at a concert in Manchester, England, Trump condemned the assault as the act of “evil losers” and called on nations to band together to fight terrorism.

Earlier Sunday, Trump had criticized London’s mayor after the mayor sought to reassure residents about a stepped-up police presence following the attack, the third in the country in past three months. Trump argued in a Twitter post for leaders to “stop being politically correct” and to focus on “security for our people.”

The mayor’s spokesman said he was too busy to respond to Trump’s “ill-informed” tweet.

In a series of tweets that began late Saturday, Trump also pushed his stalled travel ban, mocked gun control supporters and pledged that the United States will be there to help London and the United Kingdom.

Trump challenged London Mayor Sadiq Khan for saying there was “no reason to be alarmed.” Khan spoke those words in a television interview Sunday in the context of reassuring Londoners about an increased police presence they might see.

“No reason to be alarmed,” Khan said, describing a more visible presence as “one of things the police and all of us need to do to make sure we are as safe as we possibly can be.”