Trump basks in travel ban triumph
CRITICS FEAR PRESIDENT MAY FURTHER TEST HIS STATUTORY POWERS
President Donald Trump has declared victory after the Supreme Court ruled his administration could go forward with some parts of its travel ban affecting multiple Muslim-majority countries, saying the ruling “allows me to use an important tool for protecting our nation’s homeland.”
“Today’s Supreme Court decision is a clear victory for our national security. It allows the travel suspension for the six terror-prone countries and the refugee suspension to become largely effective,” Trump said.
However, several religious and civil rights organisations, expressed outrage at the rejection of a challenge that claimed the policy discriminated against Muslims.
Meanwhile, a judge in San Diego barred the separation of migrant children from their parents and required officials to reunify within 30 days families that have been divided.
President Donald Trump’s victory on Tuesday in the Supreme Court’s ratification of his travel ban marked a milestone in his attempt to paint broad swathes of immigrants as dangerous — a rhetorical strategy that has underpinned the administration’s sweeping efforts to unilaterally curtail immigration.
Since taking office 18 months ago, Trump has amplified, and attempted to codify into policy, his campaign-trail warnings of the threats posed by foreigners who attempt to enter the United States, including those who come through legal channels.
Shunting aside a Congress mired in a decades-long stalemate over immigration, the president has wielded his executive authority to pursue a hardline agenda. The Trump administration has ramped up arrests of illegal immigrants, slashed refugee programmes, criminalised unauthorised border crossings, attempted to terminate a deferred-action programme for immigrants who came as children and — until Trump reversed himself last week — implemented a policy to separate families at the border between the United States and Mexico.
Critics expressed fears that the court’s ruling would embolden Trump to further test the limits of his statutory authority to enforce border-control laws without explicit approval from lawmakers. Aides have promised new measures ahead of the midterm elections in November, and Trump ruminated this week about the power to turn away unauthorised immigrants without offering them due process rights.
What’s next
“Who’s going to be next?” asked Sen. Mazie Hirono, DHawaii, whose state brought the case against the travel ban. “Is the president going to issue an executive order against Mexicans? Is he going to issue an executive order against people from Honduras? Guatemala? What’s next?”
The ban, which applied to six majority-Muslim nations, represented the audacity of Trump’s ambition in the early days of his administration but also, over the past year, the potential legal limits of his authority. The administration suffered several humiliating legal setbacks in lower courts to immigrant rights groups which had cast Trump’s order as a xenophobic attack on Muslims that violated the Constitution.
The high court’s 5-to-4 decision, sharply split between conservative and liberal justices, handed Trump a “tremendous victory,” as he called it during impromptu remarks at the White House. Aides described an air of vindication and even elation in the West Wing just days after Trump acceded to a humiliating about-face over his family separation policy in the face of an international uproar.
“This ruling is also a moment of profound vindication following months of hysterical commentary from the media and Democratic politicians who refuse to do what it takes to secure our border and our country,” Trump said in a statement. “As long as I am President, I will defend the sovereignty, safety, and security of the American People.”
Immigrant rights advocates said the travel-ban ruling is bound to fortify Trump’s conviction to accelerate the administration’s efforts to choke off legal avenues for refugees, foreign students and temporary workers, all of whom have been confronted with new hurdles for entry.
Immigrant rights advocates said the travel-ban ruling is bound to fortify Trump’s conviction to accelerate the administration’s efforts to choke off legal avenues for refugees, foreign students and temporary workers, all of whom have been confronted with new hurdles for entry.