Refugee groups and individuals separated from family members overseas said they are taking the president at his own word: trying to use public statements by Trump and his aides during the campaign and after to prove the order is motivated by religious animus.
The page that displayed the 2015 statement used to read, in part, "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on".
Judges in Maryland and Hawaii had previously halted implementation of the order, specifically citing Trump's past statements while he was on the campaign trail.
Wall told the judges past legal precedent holds that the court should not look behind the text of the Trump's executive order, which does not mention any specific religion, to get at its motivations.
Judge Chuang wrote that while the revised order removed preferences for religious minorities, deleted Iraq from the list of banned countries that had been in the first order, and provided for certain exemptions, President Trump's past statements provided enough evidence to show that the intent of the ban was to discriminate against Muslims.
A handful of judges appeared skeptical of Wall's arguments that they shouldn't give weight to Trump's campaign statements. "Even in the domestic setting, courts judge the legitimacy of a law by what it says and does, and occasionally by the official context that surrounds it - not by what supposedly lies in the hearts of its drafters", the government's brief says.
- Dafna Linzer (@DafnaLinzer) May 8, 2017Court: Trump has never repudiated what he said about Muslim Ban.
Israel says video shows Palestinian hunger-strike leader eating
The Palestinians said the video was false, did not happen during the period of the strike, and was an attempt to smear Barghouti. Unnamed sources have claimed the food was bait to get the Palestinian leader to break his strike.
The International Refugee Assistance Project brought the claim to that district court in Maryland and the Justice Department appealed. The judges asked whether the revised ban violates the establishment clause and whether the courts had any business delving into issues best handled by the executive and legislative branches of government. They said there's no legitimate basis for restricting visitors from the six countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The scope of Trump's revamped ban, signed in early March, was reduced from his original January effort, which blocked travellers from seven-majority Muslim countries as well as all refugees. But Monday's arguments will be heard by 13 of the 4th circuit's slate of 15 judges, 10 of whom were appointed under former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
A U.S. District Court judge in Hawaii stopped enforcement of the original order February 3, and a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the injunction on February 9. Hawkins was appointed in 1994.
The full 4th Circuit took up the appeal but two Republican-appointed judges did not participate.
A federal appeals court will begin hearing arguments from White House lawyers in a case about whether Trump's second travel ban should remain blocked. Wilkinson's daughter is married to the acting solicitor general. It was not immediately clear why Duncan is not on the panel. Of the judges who heard the case, Democratic presidents nominated nine, Republicans nominated three, and presidents from both parties nominated Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory.
Stras formerly clerked for conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and is known to share the view of a limited role for the judiciary.
Comments