WASHINGTON, D.C. — In yet another blow to the Trump administration the 9th Circuit Court on Monday again ruled against the president’s embattled travel ban.
In a hearing to determine whether or not the president discriminated against people based on their nationality, the court upheld a prior injunction from the 9th Circuit, which blocked enforcement of a Trump executive order that would have temporarily prevented immigrants from terror prone countries from entering the United States.
“We conclude that the President, in issuing the Executive Order, exceeded the scope of the authority delegated to him by Congress,” the opinion (http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2017/06/12/17-15589.pdf), which came from an anonymous three-judge panel, reads. “Immigration, even for the President, is not a one-person show.”
“In suspending the entry of more than 180 million nationals from six countries, suspending the entry of all refugees, and reducing the cap on the admission of refugees from 110,000 to 50,000 for the 2017 fiscal year, the President did not meet the essential precondition to exercising his delegated authority,” the ruling continues. “Here, the President has not done so.”
In its ruling to uphold the previous ruling, the 9th Circuit cited the president’s tweet on The judges cited a tweet by the president on June 5, in response to the terror attack in London.
“That’s right, we need a TRAVEL BAN for certain DANGEROUS countries, not some politically correct term that won’t help us protect our people!” Trump tweeted.
“Indeed, the President recently confirmed his assessment that it is the ‘countries’ that are inherently dangerous, rather than the 180 million individual nationals of those countries who are barred from entry under the President’s ‘travel ban,'” one judge on the panel wrote.
The panel also cited comments by White House press secretary Sean Spicer that the President’s tweets are “considered official statements by the President of the United States.”
“The President must make a sufficient finding that the entry of these classes of people would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” Further, the Order runs afoul of other provisions of the INA that prohibit nationality-based discrimination and require the President to follow a specific process when setting the annual cap on the admission of refugees. On these statutory bases, we affirm in large part the district court’s order preliminarily enjoining Sections 2 and 6 of the Executive Order,” the jurists concluded.
President Trump has said a temporary travel ban on individuals seeking to enter the U.S. from terror prone countries is essential to providing the federal government the time it needs to develop enhanced vetting procedures. Critics, however, claim the executive order amounts to an unconstitutional “ban on Muslims”.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia also ruled against the travel ban in an opinion given on May 25. That ruling has been appealed by the Trump administration to the Supreme Court.