Much of our nation’s focus on preventing terrorist attacks has been on our borders, but, in fact, violent extremists are already here. It is like those old horror movies, where the climax begins with the line, “The call is coming from inside the house!” While border security is an important issue, we can’t ignore the threat that lies within.… continue »
In a post last week, Steve Weine celebrated the fact that the Obama administration’s countering violent extremism (CVE) program was still alive. In his view, “national security pragmatists,” by preserving funding for CVE, won an important battle against folks like Sebastian Gorka, an adviser to President Donald Trump who views the program as simply an exercise in political correctness.… continue »
One of the hotly contested questions in the Travel Ban litigation is the definition of “close family relationships.” The Supreme Court told the administration that it cannot enforce the ban against any foreign national who has a “close familial relationship” with a person in the United States.… continue »
On Monday, the Supreme Court held that the administration must not enforce its Travel Ban Executive Order against foreign nationals who have “a credible claim” of a “close familial relationship” with “a person … in the United States.” On Wednesday, the Trump Administration stipulated in Guidance to all U.S.… continue »
Many close observers of the Court are still scratching their heads, trying to figure out just exactly what the Court did yesterday in Trump v. IRAP–and why. With the luxury of a few hours to ponder the mysteries, here are some tentative speculations on the most commonly posed questions.… continue »
Today, the Supreme Court partially stayed and partially upheld the lower court injunctions in the travel ban litigation. The way in which the Court split the baby is perhaps the most significant hint yet about how the Court is thinking about the rights of noncitizens and the so-called “immigration plenary power”—the so-called extra-constitutional authority of the Executive Branch to regulate immigration without standard review by federal courts.… continue »
The government just filed its final pleading before the Justices’ consideration of the entry-ban cases tomorrow. This follows final briefs that the IRAP and Hawaii plaintiffs filed yesterday.
In a post on Monday, I offered some thoughts on three of the most important considerations the Court will be considering: (i) whether there’s any basis for the Court to grant cert.… continue »
As the litigation over the travel ban moves to the Supreme Court, the most important passage in the Fourth Circuit’s en banc opinion may be a tangential footnote finding “yet another marker” of illegitimate purpose in the text of the Executive Order.… continue »
Lots of people have been commenting on the self-sabotaging aspect of Donald Trump’s early morning Twitter-storm, which undermines a central argument in his Supreme Court challenge his lawyers filed last week to defend his executive orders on immigration.
But it’s not just that Trump this morning announced we need “a TRAVEL BAN!” after Justice Department lawyers have been denying that his orders are actually bans at all.… continue »
Cross-posted on Take Care.
In the Fourth Circuit oral argument yesterday in IRAP v. Trump, Judge Barbara Keenan put her finger on a simple, basic reason why Section 2(c) of Executive Order 13769 is unlawful—and it doesn’t have much to do with the Establishment Clause.… continue »
