Law wonk: Chutzpah of Travel Ban Opponents

International-law specialist E.M. Oblomov has found an “audacious example” of chutzpah. The group HIAS has worked since the late 19th century to help Jews fleeing oppression settle in the United States, with its work reaching its pinnacle during the drive to help Soviet Jews and the 1975 Jackson-Vanik Amendment pressuring the Soviets on the matter. “Though [Jackson-Vanik] was written in ethnically and religiously neutral terms, the policy it put into effect was designed to favor Soviet Jews,” Oblomov writes at City Journal. But “that was then.” Today, HIAS is the second plaintiff in the suit against President Trump’s travel ban, arguing it crosses the Constitution’s Establishment Clause by violating religious neutrality in effect, even if not explicitly written to do so. In other words, precisely what HIAS’s mission has always been: “Even by the standards of chutzpah, that’s quite a pivot.”