A victory but not a rationale
As six federal courts have recognized, President Trump’s efforts to prohibit Muslims from entering the country belong in history’s dustbin with the laws enacted a century ago to prevent Asian, Italian and Jewish immigration. Unfortunately, a faction of the U.S. Supreme Court appears eager to let the administration recycle the regrettable chapter.
Despite Trump’s typically hyperbolic declaration of total victory, the court’s ruling Monday was mixed. While allowing Trump’s temporary ban on travelers from select predominantly Muslim countries and most refugees to be enforced for the first time since its chaotic and abortive debut in January, the justices tempered its absurdity by exempting people with a “bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States,” such as those with relatives, jobs or studies here. Moreover, the ruling leaves the ultimate legality of the ban to be determined when the court reconvenes in the fall, and the justices appear to be divided on that question.
Upholding Trump’s order would require them to overrule the substantial objections of the lower courts, the most important of which is that the policy springs directly from Trump’s campaign promise to prohibit Muslims from entering the United States. The original order’s exception for “persecuted religious minorities” and Trump’s stated preference for Christian refugees made the focus on Muslims still more explicit — which, besides being inflammatory and discriminatory, is conspicuously incompatible with the First Amendment right to worship freely.
The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco raised another objection: that although the order rests on the president’s authority to restrict immigration for national-security reasons, Trump failed to justify it on those grounds.
Indeed, it’s hard to square the ostensible security rationale for the ban with the facts. None of the perpetrators of deadly terrorist attacks on American soil on or since 9/11 were from the countries targeted — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The overwhelming majority, according to the New America Foundation, were U.S. citizens or legal residents; restricting travel by Texans and Virginians would have affected more of them than Trump’s order.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, once home to most of the 9/11 hijackers and one of the San Bernardino shooters, is unaffected by the ban. That probably isn’t just because the Saudis let the president touch their orb. Trump’s businesses have interests in the kingdom, much as they do in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, two other countries whose ties to terrorism seem to have been overlooked.
As it happens, the high court’s decision coincided with the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which was recognized by White House dinners under George W. Bush, Barack Obama and, according to some accounts, Thomas Jefferson. Given Trump’s determination to trade America’s best traditions for its worst, it’s not surprising that there was no such White House dinner this year.