Peter1469
05-08-2017, 06:00 PM
Fourth Circuit to hear Trump's travel EO en banc (https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-travel-ban-faces-test-062107784.html)
They decided to skip a regular appeal and go with the full court up front.
Did Donald Trump's contested travel ban deliberately single out Muslims? The US administration fiercely denied it during an appeals court hearing Monday -- despite the president's campaign call for a blanket Muslim ban.
The hearing came as Trump seeks to bounce back from a series of stinging judicial defeats over his controversial effort to bar travelers from half a dozen mainly Muslim countries.
The question of intention is key since the US Constitution forbids religious discrimination. Trump's detractors say it is beyond doubt that Muslims were the ban's intended target, but the administration says it is motivated strictly by national security concerns, an area where US presidents have wide powers.
Trump "never intended for that to discriminate on the basis of any particular religion," Jeffrey Wall, the US acting solicitor general, told judges of the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond during an intensely argued afternoon hearing.
"He made clear he was not talking about Muslims all over the world," said Wall. "That's why it's not a Muslim ban."
But a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, Omar Jadwat, whose side is supported by several Democratic-led states, argued that Trump the candidate made clear he wanted to ban all Muslims for a time while studying enhanced immigration vetting.
A lower judge's ruling dealt Trump a blow by freezing his second attempt to close US borders to citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days.
Given the public importance of the case, the full appeals court in Richmond heard the arguments -- bypassing the usual initial three-judge panel -- for the first time in a quarter-century.
Thirteen of the court's 15 active judges took part. Two recused themselves over potential conflicts of interest, including the conservative J. Harvie Wilkinson, Wall's father-in-law.
They decided to skip a regular appeal and go with the full court up front.
Did Donald Trump's contested travel ban deliberately single out Muslims? The US administration fiercely denied it during an appeals court hearing Monday -- despite the president's campaign call for a blanket Muslim ban.
The hearing came as Trump seeks to bounce back from a series of stinging judicial defeats over his controversial effort to bar travelers from half a dozen mainly Muslim countries.
The question of intention is key since the US Constitution forbids religious discrimination. Trump's detractors say it is beyond doubt that Muslims were the ban's intended target, but the administration says it is motivated strictly by national security concerns, an area where US presidents have wide powers.
Trump "never intended for that to discriminate on the basis of any particular religion," Jeffrey Wall, the US acting solicitor general, told judges of the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond during an intensely argued afternoon hearing.
"He made clear he was not talking about Muslims all over the world," said Wall. "That's why it's not a Muslim ban."
But a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, Omar Jadwat, whose side is supported by several Democratic-led states, argued that Trump the candidate made clear he wanted to ban all Muslims for a time while studying enhanced immigration vetting.
A lower judge's ruling dealt Trump a blow by freezing his second attempt to close US borders to citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days.
Given the public importance of the case, the full appeals court in Richmond heard the arguments -- bypassing the usual initial three-judge panel -- for the first time in a quarter-century.
Thirteen of the court's 15 active judges took part. Two recused themselves over potential conflicts of interest, including the conservative J. Harvie Wilkinson, Wall's father-in-law.