Did Roberts Show His Hand On The Travel Ban?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

IMMIGRATION, JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT
Did Roberts Show His Hand On The Travel Ban?
Is bigotry constitutional, but moot?

By ELIE MYSTAL
at 12:32 PM

The Supreme Court today lifted parts of the injunction against Donald Trump’s executive order “travel ban,” and agreed to consolidate and hear the government’s appeal of decisions in the Ninth and Fourth circuits.

One of these days, the Congress will demand that the Courts tell us who voted how when they decide to grant cert, but until then we’re left with this per curiam decision explaining why the Court lifted parts of the injunction, and left other parts in place. The main takeaway is this: the Court upheld the injunction as it pertains to people with a “bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” The injunction is lifted against foreign nationals, including refugees, with no claim to any person or institution in the United States. From the ruling:

The injunctions remain in place only with respect to parties similarly situated to Doe, Dr. Elshikh, and Hawaii. In practical terms, this means that §2(c) may not be enforced against foreign nationals who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States. All other foreign nationals are subject to the provisions of EO–2

This point bears repeating again and again, because we know what’s going to happen next. Government officials, airlines, and any number of teapot despots wearing a badge will try to block entry into this country for people who are allowed to come here. If your family is here, if your school is here, you are still allowed to come here. The Travel Ban is still enjoined for those people. But I don’t trust average officials to understand that so, lawyers, time to spring into action. People at JFK and SFO and LAX are going to need your help.
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Travel ban decision {Supreme Court}

Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [e-mail]. He will resist.

[riversedge]

1. "Banning children seeking asylum because theyre from a bad country seems wrong and immoral to me.

The moment I heard the decision, I got a a sinking feeling for next fall.


...By lifting even part of the injunction, there’s the suggestion that there is some Constitutional way to ban people for no other reason than that they’re from Muslim-majority countries we don’t like. I feel like I have to say this, given what America has become, but not everybody from Muslim-majority countries are terrorists. Banning people, based not on what they’ve done but based on what other brown people in their countries have done seems obviously wrong to me. Banning children seeking asylum because they’re from a “bad” country seems wrong and immoral to me.

And yet it didn’t seem obviously morally and Constitutionally wrong to a majority of the Court. That’s not cool.

[Gothmog]

2. Good Article