Terrorism list fails to show ties to Trump’s travel ban

78 attacks have little bearing on fight over immigration order

WASHINGTON The White House’s list of 78 terrorist incidents it claims have been undercovered by the media was hastily assembled to defend President Trump’s latest broadside on the “dishonest press” and doesn’t show what the administration says it does.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that the list demonstrated “the reason the president is acting in so many of the ways he has, with executive order and otherwise” — connecting the president’s claims to the legal battle over his order banning people from seven predominately Muslim countries from traveling to the United States.

“And I think what we need to do is to remind people that the Earth is a very dangerous place these days,” he said.

A USA TODAY analysis of the incidents in the White House list published Monday night found that it has little bearing on the fight over the

spokesman for the court said a ruling is expected later this week.

It was convened only days after Trump signed the executive order, which places its most extreme restrictions on refugees and immigrants from Syria. That action was blocked last week by federal district Judge James Robart in Seattle, who would hear detailed arguments from both sides if the appeals court panel upholds his initial decision and sends the case back. And either side could appeal the panel’s ruling to the Supreme Court.

August Flentje, arguing for the government, said the seven countries selected for the travel ban — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — were identified by the Obama administration as prone to terror, giving Trump the right to ban immigrants temporarily.

“Has the government provided any evidence connecting these countries with terrorism?” Friedland, the presiding judge, asked.

“I understand the concept of that, but it’s pretty abstract,” Clifton chimed in. “It’s not like there haven’t been processes in place for dealing with people from those countries.”

The judges zeroed in on that point, repeatedly asking for instances in which travelers from the seven countries had entered the U. S. and committed acts of terrorism. Flentje said the case was moving very quickly, pleading for more time to bolster the government’s arguments at the district court level.

Washington state Solicitor General Noah Purcell raised the religious component of Trump’s ban, arguing that it violated constitutional protections by barring targeting Muslims, who make up 97% of the seven nations’ populations.

But Clifton said he saw no evidence that the order was written to target Muslims and said the countries represent only about 15% of the world’s Muslims.

“I have trouble understanding why we’re supposed to infer religious animus, when in fact the vast majority of Muslims would not be affected,” he said.

Purcell responded that Trump’s words on the campaign trail, when he called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, were all the proof needed to understand the true reason behind the order.

“There are statements that we’ve quoted in our complaint that are rather shocking evidence of intent to discriminate against Muslims,” he said.

To reverse Robart’s ruling, the circuit court must show that it was decided in error, a difficult standard to meet — or at least that it was, as the government argues, “vastly overbroad.”