https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp94
Before diving into the order, a brief sidebar. This segment is not political, and has no plans to become so, even with the current climate of the U.S. You will not find my personal views here, only education to make us all better-equipped to face the conversations and interactions on social media and beyond about these hot topics. That said, let's look at the order called a "Muslim Ban" by some.
Headlined by the Mexico border wall, one of the top campaign focuses for President Trump was immigration, and he has wasted no time using executive orders to try and deliver on some of his policy promises. The first major immigration EO was a suspension of new refugee admissions for 120 days coupled with a ban on travelers from seven muslim-heavy countries for 90 days, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Somalia. This is why it's called by detractors the muslim ban. The order came out on a Friday afternoon, leading to a wild weekend of airport detentions, protests, and legal challenges.
The Trump administration defends the order as protective of U.S. borders and helping restrict potential terrorism. However, the four federal judges who reviewed injunction orders challenging enforcement of the order each put some type of hold on the order, finding that there is a substantial likelihood that the challengers to the order will prevail on the merits.
So what are these legal challenges? And will they succeed?
One challenge is that the order violates the 1965 updates to the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which prohibited preferences or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, nationality, or place of residence. Comments made by President Trump and the wording of the order may fall right into this prohibition. It's also possible that the order is too ambiguous to properly enforce, as it has been debated even by the administration whether it applies to green card holders, who are legal residents under immigration law.
Other challenges yet to be made include whether the order complies with the Constitution. Legal experts plan to challenge the order based on failure to provide due process required under the Constitution, and also under the First Amendment as an improper establishment of religion by favoring Christianity over Islam. Those challenges might be longer shots as they rely more on outside circumstances beyond the order itself, but the entire picture provides a negative outlook that this executive order will survive in anywhere near its current form.
The Bottom Line is, the prolific use of executive orders under Presidents Obama and now Trump can lead to troubling results, but thankfully, hastily worded and poorly-vetted orders can also be subject to easy legal attacks. What will be interesting is not whether this EO survives, as it probably won't, but what future orders will be tailored better by the administration. Indeed, the administration is already discussing another sweeping immigration order refusing entry and/or deporting those who would or are dependent on public resources like welfare. The battles will likely continue as long as immigration is a primary focus of the President.
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Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy
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