Is A Constitutional Crisis Imminent In The Wake Of Trump’s Immigration Ban?
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Jan 30, 2017
Trump’s immigration ban led to complete chaos over the weekend as protesters descended upon airports and the ACLU filed a number of lawsuits seeking to overturn an executive order which they argue is tantamount to a “Muslim ban” and a direct violation of the First Amendment. As we pointed out yesterday (see “Federal Judge Grants Partial Block Of Trump Immigration Order”), the executive order in question indefinitely suspended the resettlement of Syrian refugees and suspended all other refugee resettlement for 120 days. It also banned entry for 90 days of nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.
So far, four U.S. district judges — in Brooklyn, New York; Boston; Alexandria, Virginia; and Seattle — have issued temporary rulings blocking aspects of the immigration ban. That said, the provisional judicial rulings didn’t delve into deep constitutional issues of the ban which the ACLU asserts is a direct violation of the First Amendment. Per Bloomberg:
“This was a Muslim ban wrapped in a paper-thin national-security rationale,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the organizations that went to court to challenge the order.
“To say we’re not going to let you into the country because you’re Muslim is the very essence of religious discrimination,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law.
Laurence Tribe, a prominent liberal constitutional scholar at Harvard University, called the order “barely disguised religious discrimination against Muslims and religious preference for Christians.” The order by its own terms establishes preferential treatment for refugees identified with “minority religions” in their country of origin.
The lawsuits filed by the ACLU prompted a tidal wave of donations which totaled over $24 million in a single weekend, or roughly 6 times the organization’s average annual donation tally according to the Washington Post.
The Rest…HERE
