A demonstrator holds an American flag during an immigration rally at San Francisco International Airport on Jan. 28, 2017 in San Francisco. Stephen Lam / Getty Images, file
The Justice Department counters by saying that a federal law explicitly gives the president the authority, in the words of the statute, “to suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens” for national security purposes.
In restricting travel for 90 days from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, President Trump was focusing on countries that Congress and the State Department had already deemed to be “associated with a heightened risk of terrorism” and that lack sufficient resources to allow thorough vetting of those wishing to come to the United States.
As for the constitutional claim, the government says the executive order does not favor Christians over Muslims. Recognizing that religious minorities are more likely to face persecution than members of a country’s dominant religion is a well established principle of immigration policy, the Justice Department argues.
James Robart, a federal district court judge in Seattle, issued
a temporary restraining order Friday that blocked enforcement of the Trump travel restrictions. He acted after the states said the Trump order hurt their universities, stranding students and faculty overseas or preventing others from traveling for research.
On Monday,
nearly 100 mostly high-tech companies, including global giants like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Twitter, filed a friend-of-the-court briefing that said the travel restrictions were harming their ability to recruit the world’s brightest job applicants.
Related:
Trump Administration Floats Compromise in Fight Over Travel Ban
And two former secretaries of state, John Kerry and Madeleine Albright, have
joined former top intelligence officials in saying that the Trump immigration order harms national security by both giving ISIS a new propaganda tool and discouraging Muslims in the U.S. from reporting potential trouble they see to law enforcement.
In a court filing late Monday, the Trump administration
offered a possible fallback position, in the event the appeals court is inclined to rule for the states. The court could let most of the executive order be enforced again but provide an exemption for people who were allowed into the country once before and now want to return, or people here on visas now who want to travel and then come back.
“At most, the injunction should be limited to the class of individuals on whom the states’ claims rest,” the government said, referring to students, scholars, and high-tech employees who have already been allowed into the United States. That would limit the executive order to covering only those who seek to enter the country for the first time.
Once the appeals court rules on whether to keep Judge Robart’s order in place, whichever side loses will undoubtedly ask the U.S. Supreme Court to step in.
People gather for an immigration protest at San Francisco International Airport on Jan. 28, 2017. Peter DaSilva / EPA, file
