Texas AG Files Amicus Brief in Support of Travel Ban......

[MMC]

Some push back against the 9th Circus of the Appellate Court.




Texas became the first state to support President Trump’s immigration executive order in court on Wednesday. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an amicus brief with the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, in defense of the constitutionality of the travel ban.


[In the brief, Paxton says the immigration order exercises the executive power over national security.
“The law makes it very clear that the president has discretion to protect the safety of the American people and our nation’s institutions with respect to who can come into this country,” said Paxton. “The safety of the American people and the security of our country are President Trump’s major responsibilities under the law.”]


You can read the full brief here.......snip~


http://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortney...l-ban-n2286426

[waltky]

Win for Trump Travel Ban...

Supreme Court Issues Temporary Order Upholding Trump Travel Ban
September 11, 2017 | WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court has issued a temporary order allowing the Trump administration to maintain its restrictive policy on refugees while the court considers challenges to the travel ban.

Justice Anthony Kennedy issued the temporary order Monday. It was expected to remain in effect while the full court takes up the matter, likely within a matter of days. Had the Supreme Court not acted, an appeals court decision lifting part of the ban on refugees would have gone into effect on Tuesday. If there further challenges to the refugee ban, Kennedy said, they should be filed to the nation's highest court by noon on Tuesday. The Trump administration made an emergency application to the Supreme Court Monday, asking for a stay on an earlier ruling by an appeals court, which effectively reinstated a 120-day ban on entry to the United States by almost all refugees. The lower court ruled last week that refugees could enter the country if a U.S.-based resettlement agency agreed to accept their cases.


The forthcoming ruling by the nine justices of the full Supreme Court could decide the fate of up to 24,000 refugees. If the decision goes against the refugees and their advocates, “We will fight it,” said Neal Katyal, a lawyer involved in defending would-be refugees and other travelers blocked from coming to the U.S. by President Trump's executive orders. In Monday's court filing, the Justice Department said the pending appellate court ruling “will disrupt the status quo and frustrate orderly implementation of the (presidential) order's refugee provisions.” Federal attorneys did not seek any immediate action Monday against a separate part of last the ruling issued last Thursday by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The lower court said Trump's ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority countries should not apply to the grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins of legal U.S. residents.


Latest twist


Court action this week marked the latest twist in the prolonged legal battle over the president's immigration policies. Just after taking office in late January, President Trump issued an executive order that would have blocked nearly all refugee arrivals. After court challenges that stymied his plan, the president issued an amended version of his order in March that barred travelers from Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days, a move Trump argued was needed to prevent terrorist attacks. The Supreme Court ruled in June that the federal government could exclude prospective refugees who did not have a “bona fide” relationship to people or entities in the United States, prompting litigation over the meaning of that phrase.

The sun flares in the camera lens as it rises behind the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington

Resettlement agencies argued that their commitment to provide services for specific refugees should count as a "bona fide" relationship. The Trump administration said it should not, meaning such refugees would be barred. Apart from the question of what constitutes “bona fide” relationships, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in October about whether Trump's travel ban discriminates against Muslims, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.


By the numbers


As lower courts and the Supreme Court weighed in on the travel and refugee bans in recent months, the U.S. refugee program has lurched from an ambitious projection of 110,000 arrivals for the year, to just a few hundred arrivals a week. Through the end of the fiscal year, September 30, fewer than 52,000 will have entered the United States during the previous 12 months — a population close to Trump's stated desire to cap arrivals at 50,000. The administration is expected to announce in the coming weeks what the maximum number of refugee arrivals for the coming fiscal year will be.


https://www.voanews.com/a/justice-de...n/4024197.html

[waltky]

The Donald tryin' to protect us from the terrorists...

Supreme Court cancels travel ban oral arguments
Mon September 25, 2017 - White House unveils new travel restrictions

In an unexpected announcement, the Supreme Court said it will not hear oral arguments on the travel ban as scheduled on October 10. The court wants to hear from both sides if the issue is moot after the proclamation President Donald Trump issued Sunday night. Those briefs are due October 5. This is not a ruling about the constitutionality or a final decision from the court: The one-page unsigned announcement simply removes the case from the oral argument schedule for the moment. Legal experts have said for days that they thought Travel Ban 3.0 might -- down the road -- stop the justices from weighing in on the constitutionality of the travel ban. The justices could reschedule arguments, but it's likely those arguments would focus on whether there is still a live controversy before the Supreme Court, or whether the case should be sent back down to the lower courts to review any changes in the ban.

Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco filed a letter with the Supreme Court "respectfully suggesting" that the justices request supplemental briefs from both sides by October 5 because of the new restrictions the President has outlined. In the letter, Francisco emphasized that part of the March travel ban had expired, and the administration is putting in place new restrictions after a worldwide review. The court's order on Monday was in response to Francisco's request. "In general, when one policy expires and a new policy is developed, the court may consider any challenge to the expired policy to be moot," said Irv Gornstein, the executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law. Gornstein stressed he was talking generally, but he suggested that if the parties are no longer affected by the new policy, or its impact has changed, there may not be the injury that is necessary to establish a case -- potentially meaning things will have to start anew. The new restrictions cover eight countries -- Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Somalia and Yemen -- and replace a provision of the travel ban that expired Sunday night.

In the proclamation, Trump wrote that he was acting "by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America." The restrictions, tailored to the individual countries, generally go into effect by October 18. "Because the new iteration of the travel ban applies in different ways to different countries from the March executive order, it's hard to imagine that the Supreme Court wouldn't want to hear first from the lower courts," said Steve Vladeck, CNN's Supreme Court analyst and professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law. (Vladeck co-authored a brief arguing that the current case is moot and that the Supreme Court should keep on the books lower court decisions that enjoined key provisions of the March order.) "As these developments show, the fact that the cases have now likely become moot is entirely because of the government's voluntary actions," he said. "In such circum stances, it wouldn't be fair to hand a victory to the government by wiping away the lower court decisions ruling against them." In briefs filed with the Supreme Court on a different issue considering the entry ban's expiration, the Justice Department argued that if the court were to ultimately dismiss the case as moot it should wipe away the decisions below.

MORE

See also:

Trump administration announces new travel restrictions
Mon September 25, 2017 - 8 countries are now affected; The new restrictions take effect Oct. 18

The Trump administration has unveiled new travel restrictions on certain foreigners from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen as a replacement to a central portion of its controversial travel ban signed earlier this year. The new restrictions on travel vary by country and include a phased-in approach beginning next month. "Making America Safe is my number one priority. We will not admit those into our country we cannot safely vet," President Donald Trump tweeted just after his administration released the details of the restrictions Sunday night.

In a statement Sunday night, the White House called the new restrictions a "critical step toward establishing an immigration system that protects Americans' safety and security in an era of dangerous terrorism and transnational crime.""We cannot afford to continue the failed policies of the past, which present an unacceptable danger to our country," Trump said in the White House statement. "My highest obligation is to ensure the safety and security of the American people, and in issuing this new travel order, I am fulfilling that sacred obligation."

For the last three months, the administration used an executive order to ban foreign nationals from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the US unless they have a "bona fide" relationship with a person or entity in the country. Those nations included Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, and Sudan. Individuals with that "bona fide" exception -- such as a foreign grandparent of a US citizen -- can still apply for visas until October 18. After that date, the new restrictions on travel will begin. The revised travel ban effecting those from six-Muslim majority countries officially expired earlier Sunday, and Sudan was removed from the list of affected countries.

The new list of countries notably includes several non-Muslim majority nations, including North Korea and Venezuela. In most instances, travel will be broadly suspended, while in other cases, travelers will have to undergo enhanced screening and vetting requirements. For instance, foreign nationals from North Korea are banned, but a student from Iran will be allowed in, subject to "enhanced screening and vetting requirements," according to the President's new proclamation.

MORE