The left is pretty excited right about now, and I suppose you can't blame them. When they can't win elections or pass their agenda via legislation, what they usually do is run to the courts. It matters not at all that it's not the job of courts to overturn the will of voters or legislators. The only thing that matters to the left is getting their way, and they'll be more than happy to see judges make up law from whole cloth if that's what it takes to get what they want.
It now appears that judges of all ideological stripes are willing to play ball. The judge who originally halted the order was a Bush appointee known for doing pro bono legal work for refugees. Last night, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling 3-0, with two Democrats and one Republican signing on to a decision that completely ignores the law, as Hans A. von Spakovsky explains:
Neither the judge in Washington State nor the court has offered anything approaching a detailed discussion of 8 U.SC. §1182 (f), the law which specifically gives the president authority to suspend the entry of any aliens into the U.S. if he believes their entry would be "detrimental to the interests of the United States." Unless this statutory provision is unconstitutional, the president has acted completely within the law.
The Ninth Circuit gives lip service to the fact that "courts owe substantial deference to the immigration and national security policy determinations of the political branches - an uncontroversial principle that is well-grounded in our jurisprudence."
Inexplicably, it then proceeds to give no deference to the president’s policy determination that a temporary suspension is necessary to ensure that adequate vetting procedures are in place.
The court also gives no deference to the decision of Congress to delegate its plenary power over immigration to the president on this issue.
The Ninth Circuit also claims that there is "no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the Order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States." But as Washington Examiner journalist Byron York reports, that’s simply not true. In fact, there is plenty of this sort of evidence:
Last year the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest released information showing that at least 60 people born in the seven countries had been convicted — not just arrested, but convicted — of terror-related offenses in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. And that number did not include more recent cases like Abdul Artan, a Somali refugee who wounded 11 people during a machete attack on the campus of Ohio State University last November.
Instead of discussing the relevant statute under which the president acted, the Ninth Circuit instead engages in an extensive discussion of its concern that the executive branch is failing to provide due process to aliens barred from entry into the United States. While it can certainly be argued that permanent resident aliens may have certain due process rights before their residency status can be cancelled, the White House has already said the order does not apply to permanent residents.
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It was a remarkable scene the other day when President Trump stood before sheriffs and actually read aloud from the statute, demonstrating that for all the criticism he gets as some sort of nationalist strongman, he is intimately familiar with the statute the authorizes the action he took.
But what of the judges - now two Democrats and two Republicans - who have joined in halting the order despite the wording in the statute, and the lack of any rationale on their part for why Trump does not have the authority to do what he did even though it's clear in the law that he does?
It looks to me like the courts are as panicky as the media and the Democratic Party about Trump, and they've decided to find legal justifications by any means necessary to put a brake on his authority. Why? Because he's Donald Trump.
The media think it's a damning indictment of Trump that both Republican and Democrat judges are ruling against him here. But it's actually a continuance of what we've seen ever since Trump first ran for president. Obviously Democrats can't stand him, but much of the Republican establishment doesn't much care for him either. They don't like the fact that he ignores traditions and customs, and that he chooses to use executive power in ways that are authorized in the law but are nevertheless considered crude and icky by our betters in the elite halls of power.
Trump's next move is to appeal to the Supreme Court, but the chances of success there are much less until Neil Gorsuch is confirmed. That could take some time, as would the appeal and a subsequent ruling itself once the process has a chance to get started.
And there is no reason for any of this. Trump's executive order is clearly legal. He clearly has the authority to issue it. But we now have federal judges, on a bipartisan basis, striking down legal actions of the president just because they don't like them, or don't like him. This is the sort of thing that represents power run amok, not anything Trump has done so far as president. I realize liberals think they're winning because they've found judges who will give them what they want. But the judges have no legal authority to do so, which means that what the left has really done is run roughshod over the constitutional separation of powers.
They don't care, I know. They just want to win any way they can. I don't think they have the slightest idea what they're unleashing in the pursuit of these "victories."
