Tag: Donald Trump

Categories
Law

Trump travel ban would harm competitiveness of US companies, tech firms say

Among papers filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is reviewing the Trump travel ban, is a brief by 97 tech companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Twitter and Facebook. According to the companies, the executive order that enshrined the ban:

[I]nflicts significant harm on American business, innovation, and growth as a result. The order makes it more difficult and expensive for U.S. companies to recruit, hire, and retain some of the world’s best employees. It disrupts ongoing business operations. And it threatens companies’ ability to attract talent, business, and investment to the United States.

The order is unlawful, the companies charge, because it discriminates on the basis of nationality and exercises discretion arbitrarily.

Categories
Law

The Trump travel ban lacks a rational basis

In his ruling upholding the president’s order banning admission to the U.S. by people from seven predominantly Muslim countries, District judge Nathaniel Gorton in Boston deferred to the chief executive’s authority over immigration.

But as the arguments in court that led Judge James Robart in Seattle to temporarily suspend the travel ban suggest, the government may struggle to persuade an appeals court that the executive order bears any fair relationship to the goal of protecting Americans “from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals” admitted to the U.S.

Here Robart asks Michelle Bennett, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, how many arrests of foreign nationals from the seven countries there have been since 9/11.

“Your Honor, I don’t have that information,” Bennett answered. “I’m from the civil division if that helps get me off the hook.”

“Let me tell you,” Robart replied. “The answer to that is none, as best I can tell. So, I mean, you’re here arguing on behalf of someone that says, we have to protect the United States from these individuals coming from these countries, and there’s no support for that.”

“Your Honor, I think the point is that because this is a question of foreign affairs, because this is an area where Congress has delegated authority to the President to make these determinations, it’s the President that gets to make the determinations,” Bennett answered. “And the court doesn’t have authority to look behind those determinations.”

Even if the White House is entitled to deference, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals may ask, as Robart did, what tie, if any, the executive order has to the goal of protecting Americans.

Categories
Law

Appeals court rejects White House request to immediately reinstate Trump travel ban

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Saturday denied a request by the White House to immediately reinstate a ban on travel to the U.S. by people from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

The ruling means that an order by District judge James Robart in Seattle that blocks enforcement of the ban nationwide will remain in effect until the 9th Circuit considers the government’s appeal.

Briefs opposing the government’s request to set aside the ruling by Robart are due Sunday, with a reply by the government due Monday by 3 p.m. Pacific time.

The office of Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who sued to block the travel ban, is posting legal documents in the case here.

Categories
Law

Trump travel ban blocked temporarily by judge in Seattle

A federal judge in Seattle has temporarily blocked an executive order that bars admission to the U.S. for refugees and people from seven majority-Muslim countries.

The order “adversely affects the states’ residents in areas of employment, education business, family relations and freedom to travel,” U.S. District Judge James Robart wrote in a ruling issued Friday in a lawsuit filed by the states of Washington and Minnesota.

“In addition, the states themselves are harmed by virtue of the damage that implementation of the executive order has inflicted upon the operations and missions of their public universities and other institutions of higher learning, as well as injury to the states’ operations, tax bases, and public funds,” Robart added.

The ruling, which applies nationwide, will remain in effect until lawyers for the government have an opportunity to argue why it should be lifted. Airlines said late Friday they would permit passengers from the seven countries who hold valid visas or green cards to board flights to the U.S.

The government has voided as many as 60,000 visas since Jan 27, when the president signed the order.

“We are a nation of laws,” Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson told reporters after the ruling. “I’m certain the president will not like this decision, but it is his job, it is his responsibility, it is his obligation as our president to honor it and I’ll make sure he does.”

Categories
Law

‘It’s a beheading of democracy, a beheading of a sacred symbol’

https://twitter.com/DerSPIEGEL/status/827562802571251712/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

 

Categories
Law

Trump’s immigration order is unconstitutional

Sally Yates paid with her job for standing up for the Constitution.

In a letter Monday to lawyers at the Department of Justice, Yates, the acting attorney general, explained that she was “not convinced” that the defense of a White House order issued Friday that bars entry to the U.S. by people from seven majority-Muslim countries would be consistent with DOJ’s “solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right.”

That earned her a sacking by the White House, intensifying a crisis that began Friday when President Trump signed the order, leading customs officials to detain people arriving from the countries at issue, visas in hand.

But as Yates appears to have concluded, the order is unconstitutional. Among other reasons: It results in the government’s favoring one religion over another, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Though the president denies that the order is a ban on Muslims, he also told an interviewer on Friday that Christians would be given priority when applying for refugee status. As David Cole, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a blog post published Saturday:

Here, too, Trump has violated the Establishment Clause’s ‘clearest command.’ Christians suffering persecution deserve asylum, but so do Muslims suffering persecution and Buddhists and Jews and Sikhs and Zoroastrians. There is no legitimate reason to favor Christians over all others who are persecuted for their beliefs.

Even had Trump not singled out Christians, the order would still be unconstitutional, according to Cole. Thirty-five years ago, the Supreme Court invalidated a Minnesota law that required religious organizations receiving less than half their contributions from members to register as charitable organizations and file an extensive annual report.

Though the statute did not mention any religion by name, members of the Unification Church, which raised most of its donations from non-members and, therefore, did not qualify for the exemption, accused the government of violating its free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The court agreed. “The clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another,” Justice Brennan wrote for the majority. “The fifty per cent rule sets up precisely the sort of official denominational preference that the Framers of the First Amendment forbade.”

Categories
Law

Trump Muslim ban: voices from the weekend

“It is appropriate and just that, pending completion of a hearing before the court on the merits of the petition, that the respondents be enjoined and restrained from the commission of further acts and misconduct in violation of the Constitution…”
U.S. District Judge Ann M. Donnelly
Eastern District of New York

“The court orders that… respondents shall permit lawyers access to all legal permanent residents being detained at Dulles International Airport.”
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema
Eastern District of Virginia

“It is hereby ordered that respondents… shall not, by any manner or means, detain or remove individuals with refugee applications approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as part of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, holders of valid immigrant and non-immigrant visas, lawful permanent residents, and other individuals from Iraq, Syria Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen who, absent the executive order, would be legally authorized to enter the United States.”
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs
U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith Gail Dein
District of Massachusetts

“The unethical and discriminatory treatment of law-abiding, hard-working, and well-integrated immigrants fundamentally contravenes the founding principles of the United States.”
Petition signed by Academics Against Immigration Executive Order, including 37 Nobel laureates

“Ultimately, I fear this executive order will become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

“It’s working out very nicely.”
President Donald Trump

Categories
Law

Judge stays Trump Muslim ban

President Trump, meet the rule of law.

A federal judge on Saturday blocked the administration from enforcing an executive order that would deny entry to the United States by people from seven Muslim countries.

In granting a request by the American Civil Liberties Union to stay deportations of as many as a dozen people detained upon arrival at Kennedy Airport, Judge Ann Donnelly of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn noted that the detainees had arrived with valid visas.

“Our own government presumably approved their entry to the country,” she told lawyers at a hearing Saturday evening, noting that had the detainees arrived before the president signed the order on Friday they would have been admitted to the country without question.

The case of Hameed Khalid Darweesh, an Iraqi citizen who arrived at JFK on Friday evening, shows the serpentine path to the U.S. and the extensiveness of screening of refugees from the affected countries even before the president barred them for at least three months.

As detailed in court papers, Darweesh, 53, worked for the U.S. government in a variety of capacities for a decade starting in March 2003. His jobs included interpreter for the U.S. Army, project engineer for the U.S. Government and a contractor for a firm hired by the Americans.

The work led to Darweesh’s being targeted by anti-American militias. In October 2014, he applied for Iraqi Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) status, which Congress created to provide safety for Iraqis who have faced threats that resulted from their service to the U.S. Here’s what ensued, according to court papers:

  • Darweesh applied for and obtained so-called Chief of Mission (COM) approval from the U.S. embassy.
  • As a SIV applicant, he then filed a petition on Form I-360 with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.
  • Darweesh then applied for a visa by filing Form DS-260 with the National Visa Center. After that was processed, he was interviewed at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
  • After the interview, the U.S. government conducted various security checks and a medical examination. It took two years from the data Darweesh received COM approval for the visas for his family and him to be processed.
  • Darweesh and his family received the visas on January 25. The family immediately boarded a flight to the U.S. via Istanbul and arrived Friday around 6 p.m. Eastern.

The family had hoped to travel to Charlotte, where they were to receive refugee benefits. But after landing at JFK, Darweesh was detained by agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

According to the ACLU, Darweesh’s attorney was present in the arrivals section of Terminal 1 but did not enter the CPB area. Darweesh allegedly was moved to so-called secondary screening.

His family waited over an hour before Darweesh emerged with a CPB officer to return passports for every member of the family except Darweesh, who was then returned to screening.

At around 11:30 p.m., CPB officers asked the family to return to the security zone for additional questioning of Darweesh’s wife. The officers refused to question Mrs. Darweesh in the arrivals area despite requests of counsel. Darweesh himself allegedly was unable to meet with his attorneys despite their making multiple attempts to meet with him.

CBP officers allegedly told the attorneys they were not the ones to speak with about seeing their clients. When the attorneys asked with whom they should speak, the CPB agents allegedly told them, “Mr. Trump. Call Mr. Trump.”

In court papers, the ACLU charged that Darweesh’s detention denied him his right to apply for asylum in violation of U.S. and international law. The U.S. cannot return Darweesh to Iraq, where he might face persecution or torture, they alleged.

What’s more they alleged, the Trump executive order is “substantially motivated by animus toward – and has a disparate effect on – Muslims” in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause.

“In every conceivable way, the vetting process is already extremely thorough,” Mostafa Hassoun, a Syrian refugee living in the U.S., wrote Saturday in Politico. “I know this because I went through the process myself.”

Judge Donnelly set a date at the end of February to hear the case.

Throughout Saturday, while Darweesh and others were detained despite holding valid visas, and their attorneys worked to secure their release, and thousands of Americans protested at airports, the president took to Twitter to complain about the “failing” New York Times.

Categories
Law

Trump ‘extreme vetting’ to face court challenges

Of the 19 terrorists who attacked the U.S. on 9/11, 15 were from Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt and one from Lebanon.

President Trump invoked the image in an executive order signed on Friday that makes citizens of seven majority Muslim nations ineligible for a visa to enter the U.S. None of the nations include countries of the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks.

The order directs the Homeland Security secretary to determine what information is needed to issue visas to people from Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Iran. The American Civil Liberties Union called such vetting “a euphemism for discrimination against Muslims.”

The order also bars refugees from entering the country for four months, and suspends admission of refugees from Syria indefinitely. The president said he would prioritize persecuted Christians from the Middle East as refugees.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Friday it would sue to challenge the order on behalf of more than 20 people who charge that it violates the First Amendment.

“The courts must do what President Trump will not — ensure that our government refrains from segregating people based on their faith,” Gadeir Abbas, one of the group’s attorneys, said in a statement.

Separately, lawyers for two Iraqi men reportedly en route to the U.S. on Friday evening with valid visas and detained at Kennedy Airport have filed a lawsuit challenging the ban on refugees as unconstitutional. It was unclear how many refugees were detained at airports nationwide.

Presidents have broad powers to control the country’s borders, which the administration seems likely to assert in court. Because absent alternative facts, the president will be unable to point to anything that ties the nations at issue to the September 11 attacks. As a report by New America notes, “every jihadist who conducted a lethal attack inside the United States since 9/11 was a citizen or legal resident.”

Categories
News

The Trump dossier differs from an indictment

BuzzFeed itself made news Tuesday when it published a 35-page dossier detailing Donald Trump’s alleged relationship with Russia.

Most news outlets, including the Times, The Washington Post and CNN, refrained from publishing the document, which as far as I know remains unverified. Dean Baquet, executive editor of the Times, said his organization would not publish “totally unsubstantiated” allegations.

BuzzFeed said it published the dossier “so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.”

But how can readers make up their minds about the truth of the charges, which include claims of meetings between Trump aides and Russian operatives, as well as sexual acts? As Erik Wemple wrote in The Washington Post, “Americans can only ‘make up their own minds’ if they build their own intelligence agencies, with a heavy concentration of operatives in Russia and Eastern Europe.”

That intelligence agencies briefed both the president and president-elect about the allegations did not sway me either. I imagine the agencies brief the president about all sorts of unsubstantiated information – possible terrorist plots, for example – that I would be in no position to assess if I learned of them.

At the same time, the existence of the dossier was known throughout official Washington. Mother Jones reported the information in October. Senator John McCain said he passed the dossier to the FBI.

As Jack Shafer argued in Politico, “… when such a report is flung about by people in power, as this one was, and its allegations are beginning to inform governance, more damage is done to trust in government and confidence in journalism by withholding it from public scrutiny.”

Ben Smith, BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief,  appeared Sunday on CNN to defend the decision to publish. “Our job is not to be gatekeepers,” he told host Brian Stelter. Smith compared the dossier to an indictment – a charge of a serious crime – which news outlets report on all the time, usually by prefacing the allegations with the word alleged. As Smith sees it:

We are I think well within the tradition of American journalism, which is every time you use the world ‘alleged’ on your air, every time you see the word ‘alleged’ in print or on the web, that is saying we are repeating a claim we can’t verify. That is totally, within the standard particularly of covering law enforcement.

The dossier reportedly originated as opposition research commissioned by one of Trump’s Republican rivals for the White House. It was later championed by a Democrat, though not necessarily the Hillary Clinton campaign.

To bring criminal charges, prosecutors generally must have probable cause, which courts have construed as meaning they must have a reasonable basis for believing that a crime has been committed.

According to the Justice Department’s charging guidelines, the requirement of probable cause merely begins the inquiry and does not alone automatically warrant prosecution.

“On the other hand, failure to meet the minimal requirement of probable cause is an absolute bar to initiating a federal prosecution, and in some circumstances may preclude reference to other prosecuting authorities or recourse to non-criminal sanctions as well,” the guidelines instruct.

Opposition researchers do not need to worry whether an allegation will hold up in court.

That’s not to suggest that criminal charges necessarily have merit because prosecutors have assessed probable cause or that charges do not need to be substantiated. But they reflect a calculation by prosecutors, as the guidelines put it, “that the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain” a conviction.

Of course, journalists are not prosecutors. And I share the instinct to want to provide readers with primary sources. But the dossier differs from an indictment.