Court rules Trump’s latest travel ban again in violation of the law
The Washington Post
A second federal appeals court Thursday struck down President Donald Trump’s latest version of the immigrant travel ban targeting nationals of six Muslim-majority countries, saying it “is unconstitutionally tainted with animus toward Islam.”
The 9-4 decision — which has no immediate effect — by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va., took a deep dive into Mr. Trump’s statements and tweets since he became president and concluded that the third iteration of his proclamation, like the first two, was motivated not by national security concerns but by antipathytoward Muslims.
“The government’s proffered rationale for the proclamation lies at odds with the statements of the president himself,” wrote Chief Judge Roger Gregory. “Plaintiffs here do not just plausibly allege with particularity that the proclamation’s purpose is driven by anti-Muslim bias, they offer undisputed evidence of such bias: the words of the president.”
The ruling, however, has mostly a symbolic impact because of a case before the Supreme Court. The justices are already scheduled to decide the legality of the travel ban, holding oral arguments in April and deciding by the term’s conclusion at the end of June. They’ve said the ban can go into place while it is challenged in the nation’s highest court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco has also struck down the ban — a ruling that also had no current effect — saying the president violated limits put in place by Congress. As it did in striking down an earlier version of the ban, the 4th Circuit’s opinion issued Thursday said the ban violated the Constitution’s prohibition on religious discrimination.
Seven of the 13 judges wrote separately to explain their reasoning.
Judge Paul Niemeyer, one of the dissenters, denounced his colleagues’ “bold effort to second-guess U.S. foreign policy and, in particular, the president’s discretionary decisions on immigration, implicating matters of national security.”
He added: “Our constitutional structure forbids such intrusion by the judiciary.”
The current version prevents travel to the U.S. by most nationals of Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. It also blocks travel by North Koreans and Venezuelans with certain government ties.
Two federal judges — in Maryland and Hawaii — had blocked implementation, at least in part. In December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld the Hawaii ruling, although it said it would allow the administration to enforce the ban on travelers without close U.S. ties, such as relatives. That appeals court ruling also was put on hold in a nod to the Supreme Court.
In early December, the high court had lifted injunctions issued by the judges in Hawaii and Maryland and allowed the ban to fully take effect while the legal challengescontinue.