TITAN v. TITAN: President Trump and the Federal Courts Face Off Over Temporary Travel Ban

by Diane Rufino, February 6, 2017

On January 27, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States” which provides a 90-day suspension of entry into the United States for individuals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen on account of their status as posing a heightened risk of terrorism. It was the US Congress, under President Barack Obama, which had assigned this status to those seven countries.

The Executive Order was issued after the President determined that “deteriorating conditions in certain countries due to war, strife, disaster, and civil unrest increase the likelihood that terrorists will use any means possible to enter the United States,” and that our Nation accordingly must take additional steps “to ensure that those approved for admission do not intend to harm Americans and that they have no ties to terrorism.” [see the text of the Executive Order]. Invoking his constitutional authority to control the entry of aliens into this country and congressionally-delegated authority to “suspend the entry of any class of aliens” whose entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States,” the President, by issuing the Executive Order, has directed a temporary 90-day suspension of entry for individuals from seven countries previously identified as posing a heightened risk of terrorism by Congress or the Executive Branch; a temporary 120-day suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program; and a suspension of entry of Syrian nationals as refugees until the President determines that measures are in place “to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest.” Exec. Order §§ 3(c), (5)(a), (c).

Democrats and opposition groups have nicknamed the Executive Order “the Muslim travel ban.”

Two days ago, on February 4, a federal district judge in Seattle issued a ruling – a nationwide temporary restraining order (TRO), aka, an injunction – that temporarily blocks the Executive Order. The court order prevents the president’s Executive Order from going into effect and allows the immigration to move forward.

The State Department has agreed to abide by the ruling until it files an appeal. In the meantime, the judge’s decision allows tens of thousands of aliens from terrorist nations visas to travel to our country. The ruling came after Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, filed a complaint challenging the constitutionality of the Executive Order’s key provisions. The TRO was issued by Seattle US District Judge James Robart pending a full review of Washington states’ complaint. In response to the decision, WA Attorney General Ferguson commented: “The Constitution prevailed today. No one is above the law—not even the president.”

Minnesota joined the suit with Washington and since the TRO was issued, seven other states have decided to join and challenge the “travel ban.” They want it overturned. These seven states include Washington, Virginia, Massachusetts, Hawaii, New York, Michigan, and California.

One day, earlier, however, another district court (Massachusetts) concluded in a thorough, well-reasoned opinion, the Executive Order is a lawful exercise of the political branches’ plenary control over the admission of aliens into the United States. Louhghalam v. Trump, Civ. No. 17-10154-NMG, Order 11 (D. Mass. Feb. 3, 2017)

This article will explain why the Executive Order and the temporary travel ban is legal and appropriate and why I think it will ultimately be upheld.

First, immigration is the sole responsibility of Congress (not of the States). The States expressly delegated such power to the federal Congress in Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States……  To establish a uniform rule of naturalization….”  (The Supremacy Clause ensures that the States respect the federal government as the sovereign on this issue). Under this authority, Congress passed the Immigration and Naturality Act of 1952 (codified at 8 USC Chapter 12) which lays out federal immigration law.  § 1182 of this Act concerns inadmissible aliens; it delegation to the President of the United States the power to suspend entry “for all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants” or to “impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

Second, the travel ban is a proper exercise of the President’s power to issue Executive Orders to force the government to enforce laws already on the books (such as the one discussed above), his war power as Commander-in-Chief (we are currently engaged in a War on Terror, as admitted so by our very own Congress and presidents), his Foreign Policy powers, and his National Security Powers.

I. The Executive Order and What It Says (and Doesn’t Say) –

The Executive Order, available on the White House website, reads:

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq., and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and to protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Purpose. The visa-issuance process plays a crucial role in detecting individuals with terrorist ties and stopping them from entering the United States. Perhaps in no instance was that more apparent than the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when State Department policy prevented consular officers from properly scrutinizing the visa applications of several of the 19 foreign nationals who went on to murder nearly 3,000 Americans. And while the visa-issuance process was reviewed and amended after the September 11 attacks to better detect would-be terrorists from receiving visas, these measures did not stop attacks by foreign nationals who were admitted to the United States.

Numerous foreign-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in terrorism-related crimes since September 11, 2001, including foreign nationals who entered the United States after receiving visitor, student, or employment visas, or who entered through the United States refugee resettlement program. Deteriorating conditions in certain countries due to war, strife, disaster, and civil unrest increase the likelihood that terrorists will use any means possible to enter the United States. The United States must be vigilant during the visa-issuance process to ensure that those approved for admission do not intend to harm Americans and that they have no ties to terrorism.

In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from foreign nationals who intend to commit terrorist attacks in the United States; and to prevent the admission of foreign nationals who intend to exploit United States immigration laws for malevolent purposes.

Sec. 3. Suspension of Issuance of Visas and Other Immigration Benefits to Nationals of Countries of Particular Concern.

(a) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall immediately conduct a review to determine the information needed from any country to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under the INA (adjudications) in order to determine that the individual seeking the benefit is who the individual claims to be and is not a security or public-safety threat.

(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall submit to the President a report on the results of the review described in subsection (a) of this section, including the Secretary of Homeland Security’s determination of the information needed for adjudications and a list of countries that do not provide adequate information, within 30 days of the date of this order. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide a copy of the report to the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence.

(c) To temporarily reduce investigative burdens on relevant agencies during the review period described in subsection (a) of this section, to ensure the proper review and maximum utilization of available resources for the screening of foreign nationals, and to ensure that adequate standards are established to prevent infiltration by foreign terrorists or criminals, pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas).

(d) Immediately upon receipt of the report described in subsection (b) of this section regarding the information needed for adjudications, the Secretary of State shall request all foreign governments that do not supply such information to start providing such information regarding their nationals within 60 days of notification.

(e ) After the 60-day period described in subsection (d) of this section expires, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall submit to the President a list of countries recommended for inclusion on a Presidential proclamation that would prohibit the entry of foreign nationals (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas) from countries that do not provide the information requested pursuant to subsection (d) of this section until compliance occurs.

(f) At any point after submitting the list described in subsection (e) of this section, the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Homeland Security may submit to the President the names of any additional countries recommended for similar treatment. [The full text is provided in the Appendix below]

Section 217(a)(12) of INA, 8 USC 1187(a)(12), which is the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015 (and extended in 2016) and which is highlighted and italicized above in the text of the Executive Order, identifies seven countries which are excluded from the waiver program. These seven countries are Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. These countries were identified under the Act, by the Obama administration, because they present a heightened risk of terrorism and they cannot and do not provide proper information on its nationals so that the United States can vet those coming into our country. A different section of the Order refers to Syria specifically, because it calls for the indefinite suspension of Syrian refugee admissions, until such time as the President believes security concerns have been adequately addressed. The President’s Executive Order does not seek to make new law. Rather, it clarifies existing law and aligns it with national security concerns. The Executive Order addresses the basic requirement for an alien to enter and reside in the United States – a verifiable visa.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 66 Stat. 163, as amended, 8 U. S. C. §1101 et seq., an alien may not enter and permanently reside in the United States without a visa. See §1181(a). President Trump is using the visa requirement to introduce proper vetting measures as it relates to those coming in from countries previously identified as engaging in terrorism and being unable to provide adequate visas. Without proper visas, the government (and the innocent citizens of the United States) do not know what type of citizens they are getting and furthermore, will be unable to keep tabs on them. According the INA, visas must ensure that the individual seeking to move to the US is not inadmissible for a number of reasons, including that they innocent of terrorist activities. The seven countries covered by the Executive Order cannot ensure that its citizens meet our threshold. Hence, the president has issued a temporary ban for 90 days in order that proper assurances can be provided.

So, to be clear about the President’s Executive Order: It bars Syrian refugees indefinitely and blocks citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entry into the US for 90 days. The provisions of the Executive Order will force the State Department and Homeland Security to establish proper vetting procedures by the 90-day period (the temporary ban) for those countries so that authorities can keep the United States safe. The exact process by which the president seeks to establish proper vetting procedures is explained clearly in the Order.

Here is some background information on the Immigration and Nationality Act, to which the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevent Act has been recently added:

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), as amended, prohibits admission into the United States of a foreign national not in possession of a valid visa, with a few limited exceptions. One such exception is the Visa Waiver Program (VWP or Program) which, for a number of years, was a pilot program (VWPP). That pilot program, which was first enacted in 1986, was designed to allow nationals from certain countries to enter the United States under limited conditions, for a short period of time, without first obtaining a visa from a U.S. consulate abroad. On October 30, 2000, President Clinton signed the Visa Waiver Permanent Program Act, making the program permanent. See Section 217. The VWP, administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in consultation with the State Department, utilizes a risk-based, multi-layered approach to detect and prevent terrorists, serious criminals, and other mala fide actors from traveling to the United States. This approach incorporates regular, national-level risk assessments concerning the impact of each program country’s participation in the VWP on U.S. national security and law enforcement interests. It also includes comprehensive vetting of individual VWP travelers prior to their departure for the United States, upon arrival at U.S. ports of entry, and during any subsequent air travel within the United States, among other things.

The VWP authorizes the Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to waive the requirement of a valid nonimmigrant visa for visitors for business (B-1) or pleasure (B-2) who are seeking to enter the United States from certain countries for not more than 90 days. In 2003, 13.5 million visitors entered the United States under this Program, constituting almost one-half of all visitors that year. The main advocates of the VWPP were the Department of State (DOS), the American tourist industry, and the business community. DOS advanced a two-fold incentive for the program: (1) eliminating the requirement for nationals of high volume application, low denial rate countries to apply for nonimmigrant visitor and business visas at the consulates, thus also eliminating processing paperwork and freeing consular resources for other activities; and (2) fostering better relations with reciprocity countries that allow U.S. citizens to also enter without a visa. The U.S. tourist industry was enthusiastic in its support of the program, as it correctly envisioned that millions of tourists would take advantage of the opportunity to travel to the United States on the spur of the moment without the time-consuming inconvenience of having to obtain nonimmigrant visas in advance of travel. The business community also welcomed the idea that people could enter the United States on short notice to conduct business without first applying for a nonimmigrant visa.6 For the most part, while the VWPP had been enthusiastically received, the Program was also the subject of a critical report issued by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General. Testifying before a House subcommittee on May 5, 1999, the Inspector General noted that the Pilot Program could facilitate illegal entry because visitors from VWPP designated countries avoid the pre-screening that consular officers normally perform on visa applicants. It was also pointed out that some terrorists and criminals intercepted at the time of inspection were attempting to enter under the VWPP. Another problem, according to the Inspector General, was government employee corruption involving bribery and trafficking in fraudulent or blank passports and other documents.

At press time, 27 countries are designated participants They include Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, 18 San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. A small number of countries that were once designated VWP countries have been disqualified from the VWP. Belgium is currently in provisional status because of concerns about the integrity of its nonmachine-readable passports and issues associated with the reporting of lost or stolen passports. Qualifying countries are designated by the Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of State, based upon that country’s satisfaction of a number of requirements, including not issuing passports to persons who pose a threat to the welfare, health, safety, or security of the United States, having a low non-immigrant visa refusal rate for the two years prior to designation, and the status of the country as one that issues its citizens machine-readable passports (“MRP”) that satisfy the internationally accepted standard for machine readability.

Section 217(a)(12) provides that a visa will not be waived “from Iraq, Syria, or other country or area of concern.” Specifically, the section states that a visa will not be waived for any “alien who has been present, at any time on or after March 1, 2011, in Iraq or Syria, or any country designated by the Secretary of State or Secretary of Homeland Security [under section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act of 1979 (50 U.S.C. 2405) (as continued in effect under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)), section 40 of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2780), section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2371), or any other provision of law], as a country whose government has repeatedly provided support of acts of international terrorism or has provided support of acts of international terrorism.” [https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-29/0-0-0-4391.html ]

II.  Constitutional Authority –

As mentioned earlier, immigration is a responsibility delegated to the federal government by the States. It was an express delegation for an express purpose – to “provide for the common defense.”  Together with the authority “to raise and support armies; to provide and maintain a navy; to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces; to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions; and to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States (Article I, Section 8), Congress was vested with the authority “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” (also Article I, Section 8).  All of these objects, as explained in the first line of Section, comprise the federal government’s primary purpose – “to provide for the Common Defense.”

So, Article I of the US Constitution gives Congress the power to make all “necessary and proper” rules to legislate and define our nation’s immigration policy.  Because this authority was delegated from the States to the federal government, the federal government is sovereign on this topic; that is, its authority is supreme. The States of Washington and Minnesota may think it has the power to interfere with the government’s rightful role – to somehow claim that its interests supersede the federal government’s decision with respect to the nation as a whole, but it is the government which is given deference.

Article II of the US Constitution provides the president with his powers. Article II, Section 1 gives the President the authority to enforce the laws passed by Congress. The president, therefore, is tasked to make sure our immigration laws are enforced.  Article II, Section 2 gives the president additional powers over immigration – under his war powers.

Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution reads: “The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices….”  When the Congress voted almost unanimously to authorize military force to fight the war on terror (AMU of September 14, 2001), it was taken as a declaration of war. As soon as our country engaged in military action, and especially with a declaration of war, the president holds the title of Commander-in-chief and has, on top of his executive powers, vast war powers.

The President also has Foreign Policy powers and National Security powers. (The State Department and Homeland Security Departments are executive cabinet offices under his control).

III.  Statutory Authority –

The Immigration and Naturality Act of 1952, codified under Title 8 of the United States Code (8 U.S.C. Chapter 12), also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, restricts immigration into the United States. It expressly authorizes the president to suspend entry of all aliens or any class of aliens, or place any restrictions on their entry as he deems necessary or appropriate, whenever he finds that such aliens would be detrimental to the interests of the country. There isn’t even a requirement that the country be at war or involved in any particular conflict.  Congress knowingly, expressly, granted the President of the United States with plenary power to suspend or restrict aliens, or any class of aliens, into the country.

The Immigration and Naturality Act of 1952 was passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress, both House and Senate, and was signed by a Democrat president, Harry S. Truman.

8 U.S. Code § 1182 reads:

8 U.S. Code § 1182 – Inadmissible Aliens

(10) Miscellaneous

(f) Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by President

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate. Whenever the Attorney General finds that a commercial airline has failed to comply with regulations of the Attorney General relating to requirements of airlines for the detection of fraudulent documents used by passengers traveling to the United States (including the training of personnel in such detection), the Attorney General may suspend the entry of some or all aliens transported to the United States by such airline.

The provision gives presidents broad authority to ban individual immigrants or groups of immigrants. Presidents haven’t hesitated to use it.  In modern times, Barack Obama invoked it 19 times, Bill Clinton 12 times, George W. Bush six times and Ronald Reagan five times. George H.W. Bush invoked it once.

Indeed, throughout our history, there have been a number of instances in which the United States has curtailed or suspended the immigration of people from certain regions or nations, both during times of war and times of peace. In several circumstances, these laws have been upheld by the Supreme Court, confirming the power of the Federal Government to regulate immigration based on the national interest. The text of the Immigration and Nationality Act is clear – the President has broad discretion to keep certain people out of the United States.

Not long after the American colonies fought the British for their independence and then established the new union (“a more perfect union”; created by the adoption of the US Constitution), the French had their own revolution. (1789-1799). The Federalists, led by Washington and then John Adams, detested the French Revolution of 1789 (1789-1799) because it led to mob rule and confiscation of property. The Republicans, which represented a new party started by Thomas Jefferson to oppose the Federalists, supported the French Revolution for its democratic ideals.

The French and English were longtime enemies. So, when President Washington developed favorable relations with Great Britain (by negotiating a treaty to settle outstanding differences between it and the States), the French revolutionary leaders became angered. In the election of 1796, Federalist John Adams won the most electoral votes to become president. Republican Thomas Jefferson came in second, which made him vice-president. (The 12th Amendment later changed this election method, requiring separate electoral ballots for president and vice-president).  Shortly after becoming president, Adams sent diplomats to France to smooth over the bad feelings. But three French representatives – dubbed X, Y, and Z – met secretly with U.S. diplomats and demanded $10 million in bribes to the French government to begin negotiations. When the Americans refused, Mr. X threatened the United States with the “power and violence of France.”  News of the “XYZ Affair” enraged most Americans. Many Federalists immediately called for war against France while Republicans spoke out against the “war fever.”

Neither the United States nor France ever declared war. But the Federalists increasingly accused Jefferson and the Republicans of being a traitorous “French Party.” Rumors of a French invasion and enemy spies frightened many Americans. President Adams warned that foreign influence within the United States was dangerous and must be “exterminated.”

Amidst this climate, in 1798, President Adams signed the notorious Alien and Sedition Acts into law to help him deal with repercussions of the French Revolution and also the Quasi-War with France. The Acts, readily adopted by a Federalist-dominated Congress, were intended to make the United States more secure from alien (foreign) spies and domestic traitors. The acts allowed the president to imprison or deport aliens considered “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States” at any time and any male citizen of a hostile nation during times of war. The two most notable of these acts were the Alien Enemies Act and the Alien Friends Act.

The Alien Enemies Act provided that once war had been declared, all male citizens of an enemy nation could be arrested, detained, and deported. If war had broken out, this act could have expelled many of the estimated 25,000 French citizens then living in the United States. But the country did not go to war, and the law was never used. It was later used, however, to justify FDR’s rounding up of Japanese-American citizens during World War II.

The Alien Friends Act authorized the president to deport any non-citizen suspected of plotting against the government during either wartime or peacetime. This law could have resulted in the mass expulsion of new immigrants. The act was limited to two years, but no alien was ever deported under it.

In 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Law, which prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers. The Chinese Exclusion Act was a vital test for the power of the federal government to restrict immigration. It was upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1889 case of Chae Chan Ping v. United States. In the opinion of the court, Justice Stephen Johnson Field wrote, “The power of the government to exclude foreigners from the country whenever, in its judgment, the public interests require such exclusion, has been asserted in repeated instances, and never denied by the executive or legislative departments.”  (The act was repealed by Congress in 1943).

In his 1905 State of the Union address, President Theodore Roosevelt had spoken of the need “to keep out all immigrants who will not make good American citizens.” In 1906, in his State of the Union address to Congress, he said he needed to have the power to “deal radically and efficiently with polygamy.” The following year, Congress passed and Roosevelt signed into law the Immigration Act of 1907, which read (Section 2):

“The following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the United States: “All idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons who have been insane within five years previous; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; paupers; persons likely to become a public charge; professional beggars; persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; ….  “polygamists, or persons who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy……”

The Immigration Act of 1907 had been meant to select only those immigrants who would make good Americans.  It is interesting to note the phrase “polygamists or persons who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy.” (The Immigration Act of 1891 had merely banned polygamists). Muslims at that time were furious over the Immigration Act of 1907 specifically because of this phrase because, as they pointed out, that phrase would prohibit the entry of the “entire Mohammedan world” into the United States. Muslims believe in polygamy. They may not actively practice it, but every faithful Muslim believes in the practice; the religion allows it.

Unlike modern presidents, Roosevelt did not view Islam as a force for good. Rather, he had described Muslims as “enemies of civilization.”  He once wrote that, “The civilizations of Europe, America and Australia exist today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization,” praising Charles Martel and John Sobieski for throwing back the “Moslem conquerors.”

In 1917, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1917 (aka, the Literacy Act or the Asiatic Barred Zone Act). In addition to barring “homosexuals”, “idiots”, “feeble-minded persons”, “criminals”, “epileptics”, “insane persons”, alcoholics, “professional beggars”, all persons “mentally or physically defective,” polygamists, anarchists, and people over the age of 16 who were illiterate, this act barred immigration from Southeast Asia, India, and the Middle East.

Presidential Proclamations 2525, 2526, and 2527 were signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Citing the Alien and Sedition Acts as precedence, these proclamations restricted the entry and naturalization of Japanese, Germans, and Italians respectively. Later, FDR would bar entry into the US of the Jews who were seeking asylum from the genocidal Nazi regime.

During the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979, President Jimmy Carter issued a number of orders to put pressure on Iran. In particular, he issued a pair of orders:  One was an order for Iranian students to report to immigration offices in order to determine if they had violated the terms of their visa; if they had, they would be deported. The second was an order to end all future visas for Iranians and to stop issuing most new visas.  Carter ordered administration officials to “invalidate all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States, effective today. We will not reissue visas, nor will we issue new visas, except for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires. This directive will be interpreted very strictly.”

On December 12, 1979, a federal judge, Joyce Hens Green, initially ruled the order unconstitutional, but her ruling was reversed on appeal.  On Sept. 22, 1980, the Times, citing an Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman, reported that by that date, nearly 60,000 students had registered as required, about 430 had been deported and 5,000 had left voluntarily.

In October 1985, President Ronald Reagan temporarily barred entry to officers or employees of the Cuban government or the Communist Party of Cuba who held diplomatic or official passports. Focused on stamping out communism, he also targeted officers of the Cuban-backed Nicaraguan government and the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front.

As mentioned above, President George H. Bush used the provision (8 USC §1182) only once. His sole use of the provision followed a 1991 a coup in Haiti that spurred thousands of people to flee on rickety boats and head for the U.S. Hundreds died at sea, but many were rescued, overwhelming processing centers set up at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and aboard Coast Guard cutters. Rather than allow Haitians to enter the United States and be screened, Bush issued an order “to enforce the suspension of the entry of undocumented aliens by sea and the interdiction of any covered vessel carrying such aliens,” allowing the U.S. to intercept the boats and send the migrants back.

President Obama turned to the provision more than any other recent president, using it to bar people who conducted certain transactions with North Korea, engaged in cyberattacks aimed at undermining democracy, or contributed to the destabilization of Libya, Burundi, Central African Republic or Ukraine. His broadest application of the law came in 2011, when he suspended entry of foreigners “who participate in serious human rights and humanitarian law violations and other abuses,” including “widespread or systemic violence against any civilian population” based on, among other factors, race, color, disability, language, religion, ethnicity, political opinion, national origin, sexual orientation or gender identity.  Obama has also used the law to block anybody involved in “grave human rights abuses by the governments of Iran and Syria…..”

President Bill Clinton used the law to block perpetrators in the ethnic conflicts that erupted in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, targeting people responsible for the repression of civilians in Kosovo, along with those obstructing democracy in Yugoslavia or lending support to the Yugoslav government and the Republic of Serbia. In 1994, he also suspended individuals and their immediate family members who were said to formulate, implement, or benefit from policies that impeded war-torn Liberia’s transition to democracy. Similar suspensions were imposed on conflict-ravaged Sierra Leone in 2000.

President George W. Bush temporarily barred foreign government officials who were responsible for failing to combat human trafficking. He also blocked those whose actions threatened Zimbabwe’s democratic institutions and transition to a multiparty democracy. Amid concerns that Syria was fomenting instability in Lebanon, Syrian and Lebanese officials deemed responsible for policies or actions that threatened Lebanon’s sovereignty were also barred from entering the U.S.

To re-cap, several US presidents have banned aliens and have, in fact, targeted certain aliens in particular. Chinese were banned by Chester A. Arthur (ethnic class). Teddy Roosevelt banned anarchists (political). FDR banned Jews and Jimmy Carter banned Iranians (because of the Embassy takeover). Ronald Reagan banned Cubans (ethnic class). Clinton banned junta members of Sierra Leone and Haiti (politics). George Bush banned government officials from Zimbabwe and Belarus (politics). Even Obama banned people from Iraq.

IV. Sovereignty –

“A country that can no longer say who can, and who cannot, come in is no longer sovereign. A government that can no longer control immigration is no longer a legitimate government.”

Sovereignty is an important concept and probably the one most ignored in this current debate on the Executive Order’s temporary travel ban (from aliens from terrorist nations).

Sovereignty refers to the authority of a state to govern itself and to make all necessary laws and policies for the benefit of its physical jurisdiction and for its citizens. It’s most critical function is to keep the state safe and secure and to ensure its continued existence as an independent state. In other words, its most important function is national security. Immigration is intimately tied to the function of national security.

National security is a concept that a government, along with its parliaments, should protect the state and its citizens against all kind of “national” crises through a variety of power projections, such as political power, diplomacy, economic power, military might, and so on.

The Heritage Foundation published an excellent overview of the responsibility of the federal government in providing national security. The article explains:

Those who have not done so recently would benefit from studying what the United States Constitution says about the federal government’s responsibility to provide for the common defense. Most Americans had to memorize the preamble to the Constitution when they were children, so they are aware that one of the purposes of the document was to “provide for the common defense.” But they are not aware of the extent to which the document shows the Founders’ concern for national security.

In brief, the Constitution says three things about the responsibility of the federal government for the national defense.

National defense is the priority job of the national government. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution lists 17 separate powers that are granted to the Congress. Six of those powers deal exclusively with the national defense—far more than any other specific area of governance—and grant the full range of authorities necessary for establishing the defense of the nation as it was then understood. Congress is given specific authority to declare war, raise and support armies, provide for a navy, establish the rules for the operation of American military forces, organize and arm the militias of the states, and specify the conditions for converting the militias into national service.

Article II establishes the President as the government’s chief executive officer. Much of that Article relates to the method for choosing the President and sets forth the general executive powers of his office, such as the appointment and veto powers. The only substantive function of government specifically assigned to the President relates to national security and foreign policy, and the first such responsibility granted him is authority to command the military; he is the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”

National defense is the only mandatory function of the national government. Most of the powers granted to Congress are permissive in nature. Congress is given certain authorities but not required by the Constitution to exercise them. For example, Article I, Section 8 gives Congress power to pass a bankruptcy code, but Congress actually did not enact bankruptcy laws until well into the 19th century. But the Constitution does require the federal government to protect the nation. Article 4, Section 4 states that the “United States shall guarantee to every State a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion.” In other words, even if the federal government chose to exercise no other power, it must, under the Constitution, provide for the common defense.

National defense is exclusively the function of the national government. Under our Constitution, the states are generally sovereign, which means that the legitimate functions of government not specifically granted to the federal government are reserved to the states. But Article I, Section 10 does specifically prohibit the states, except with the consent of Congress, from keeping troops or warships in time of peace or engaging in war, the only exception being that states may act on their own if actually invaded. (This was necessary because, when the Constitution was written, primitive forms of communication and transportation meant that it could take weeks before Washington was even notified of an invasion.)

In discussing the topic of national security, it is important to understand some of the concepts that the term incorporates.

The first is the concept of power. It can best be defined as a nation’s possession of control of its sovereignty and destiny. It implies some degree of control of the extent to which outside forces can harm the country. Hard, or largely military, power is about control, while soft power is mainly about influence—trying to persuade others, using methods short of war, to do something.

Instruments of power exist along a spectrum, from using force on one end to diplomatic means of persuasion on the other. Such instruments include the armed forces; law enforcement and intelligence agencies; and various governmental agencies dedicated to bilateral and public diplomacy, foreign aid, and international financial controls. Variables of power include military strength, economic capacity, the will of the government and people to use power, and the degree to which legitimacy—either in the eyes of the people or in the eyes of other nations or international organizations—affects how power is wielded. The measure of power depends not only on hard facts, but also on perceptions of will and reputation.

Another term to understand properly is military strength. This term refers to military capacity and the capabilities of the armed forces, and it is a capacity that may not actually be used. It often is understood as a static measure of the power of a country, but in reality, military strength is a variable that is subject to all sorts of factors, including the relative strength of opponents, the degree to which it is used effectively, or whether it is even used at all.

Force is the use of a military or law enforcement capacity to achieve some objective. It is the actual use of strength and should not be equated with either strength or power per se. Using force unwisely or unsuccessfully can diminish one’s power and strength. By the same token, using it effectively can enhance power. Force is an instrument of power just as a tool or some other device would be, but unlike institutional instruments like the armed forces, its use in action is what distinguishes it from static instruments of strength like military capacity. Thus, force should be understood narrowly as an applied instrument of coercion.

Finally, there is national defense. Strictly speaking, this refers to the ability of the armed forces to defend the sovereignty of the nation and the lives of its people; however, since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the mission of homeland security—using domestic as well as military instruments to defend the nation from terrorist and other attacks either inside or outside the country—has come to be understood as an element of national defense.

V. The War on Terror and the President as Commander-in-Chief –

On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Over 3,000 people were killed horrifically, including more than 400 police officers and firefighters. The Twin Towers collapsed, several surrounding buildings collapsed as well, and one section of the Pentagon was destroyed. Just like the attack on Pearl Harbor, it was a day that will live in infamy. It will continue to define certain human beings, certain groups, a fanatic religious ideology as pure evil.

[Osama bin Laden would issue a “Letter to America” in November 2002, explicitly stating that al-Qaeda’s motives for their attacks included: US support of Israel, support for the “attacks against Muslims” in Somalia, support of Philippines against Muslims in the Moro conflict, support for Israeli “aggression” against Muslims in Lebanon, support of Russian “atrocities against Muslims” in Chechnya, pro-American governments in the Middle East (who “act as your agents”) being against Muslim interests, support of Indian “oppression against Muslims” in Kashmir, the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, and sanctions against Iraq].

As the dust barely settled in lower Manhattan on 9/11. President Bush addressed the American people and the world. He said: “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes or in their offices — secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers. Moms and dads. Friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror. The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong. A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature, and we responded with the best of America, with the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could. The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I’ve directed the full resources for our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”

In the months that followed, the US learned just how barbaric the attackers are. On January 23, 2002, Daniel Pearl, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, left his apartment in Karachi, Pakistan for an interview. He had temporarily set up a residence in Karachi to report on America’s War on Terror. He was following a lead. He would never return that day. He was kidnapped and beheaded, with the captors turning over a 3-minute videotape of his grisly demise. President Bush watched the video. After the severed Pearl’s head, they cut up his body into ten pieces and put it into the shopping bags. They walked around with the bags to find a place to bury them, until they finally dug a hole just outside the building where he was killed. The floor of the room was then washed and they held sunset prayer there.

Months later, the US would articulate a new national security policy which would become known as the Bush Doctrine. The Bush doctrine signaled a radical break from previous national security strategies and fundamentally changed the way the US would act toward the rest of the world; the era of deterrence and containment was over. Deterrence and containment defined US policy at the end of 1945 and into the Cold War. The Bush Doctrine, defined in the positional paper “The National Security Strategy of the United States,” which was written by President Bush and the State Department (September 2002), was the answer to terrorism. As outlined in this paper, post-9/11 US foreign policy rests on three main pillars: a doctrine of unrivaled military supremacy, the concept of preemptive or preventive war, and a willingness to act unilaterally if multilateral cooperation cannot be achieved. President Bush argued that the new policy was necessary to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction among rogue states and terrorist groups. The policy of deterrence, he maintained, was no longer sufficient to prevent a rogue nation or terrorist organization from using nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. He explained: “Given the goals of rogue states and terrorists, the United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. The inability to deter a potential attacker, the immediacy of today’s threats, and the magnitude of potential harm that could be caused by our adversaries’ choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our enemies strike first. Traditional concepts of deterrence will not work against a terrorist enemy whose avowed tactics are wanton destruction and the targeting of innocents; whose so-called soldiers seek martyrdom in death and whose most potent protection is statelessness.”

On Sept. 14, 2001, the U.S. Congress in effect declared war when it passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) as a joint resolution. The vote was overwhelmingly one-sided. In the House, the vote was 420 Ayes, 1 Nay, and 10 Not Voting. In the Senate, the vote was 98 Ayes, 0 Nays, and 2 Present/Not Voting. Rep. Barbara Lee was the nay vote in the House.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires the president of the United States to notify Congress within 48 hours of ordering US armed forces for a military operation overseas. Those forces cannot operate in a deployed status for more than 60 days. Combat military operations lasting longer than that time frame require a congressional Declaration of War OR an Authorization for the Use of Military Force. Bush almost unanimously got that AUMF from Congress in 2001 when he declared the war on terrorism.

The 2001 AUMF passed by Congress in the wake of the September 11 attacks authorized the President to use force, if necessary, to seek retribution (seek justice) for the attacks on 9/11. Specifically, the AUMF states: “The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” In other words, with the AUMF, the President has been given a free hand in conducting the War on Terrorism and also in identifying the “enemy” or “enemies.” All he has to do his tie a person to an “organization” such as al-Qaeda and make a case that the person in some way “aided” the terrorists or will pose a threat by possibly or potentially engaging in future terrorist acts. [Note: There is no exception made for American citizens. There is no distinction between persons on American soil or in other countries].

The AUMF is the legal justification for the War on Terrorism. It authorizes military operations on a broad scope and in ways to be determined by the President. It elevates the president to Commander-in-chief. It has been used as the legal justification for American military action against al-Qaeda terrorists anywhere in the world, and as the legal justification for the continuing War on Terrorism. It is inconceivable that a court, let alone the highest court in the land – the Supreme Court, would overturn the power to declare war that is vested in the Congress. Congress alone has the power to declare war. It is a power explicitly and expressly delegated to the Congress in Article I of the US Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, sometimes referred to as the War Powers Clause, vests in the Congress the power to declare war, in the following wording: “The Congress shall have Power…. To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.” Congress need not know the details of the war or how the President intends to “command” the war effort; the details do not necessarily limit the declaration of war. It is the declaration or the Authorization for Use of Military Force that establishes that the country is at war. A government during peacetime is much different from a government in time of war. [See Federalist No. 45, written by James Madison]

Congress controls the decision to wage war in another way. It provides the funding. Congress funds the war. And without fail, Congress has provided funding for the War on Terror since 2001. Again, once the country is at war, the president assumes almost plenary war powers (consistent with the Constitution, of course) and the nation goes into self-preservation and survival mode. In 2002, President Bush asked Congress for a separate Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) for the Iraqi War, which he received.

In 2012, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which, like other versions of the bill before it, specified the budget and expenditures of the US Dept. of Defense. A version of the bill had passed for 55 years. However, this bill was a bit different. It contained provisions that many found extremely troubling.

The most controversial provisions were contained in subsections 1021–1022 of Title X, Subtitle D, entitled “Counter-Terrorism,” which declared that the “battlefield” in the War on Terror also included the United States itself. It authorized the indefinite military detention of persons the government suspects of involvement in terrorism, including US citizens (termed “belligerents”) arrested on American soil.

Section 1021 of the NDAA reads:

SEC. 1021. AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE.
(a) In General- Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note) includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition under the law of war.
(b) Covered Persons- A covered person under this section is any person as follows:
(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.

(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.
(c) Disposition Under Law of War- The disposition of a person under the law of war as described in subsection (a) may include the following:
(1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.
(2) Trial under chapter 47A of title 10, United States Code (as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2009 (title XVIII of Public Law 111-84)).
(3) Transfer for trial by an alternative court or competent tribunal having lawful jurisdiction.
(4) Transfer to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.

With the NDAA, which has been re-upped for fiscal year 2017, we see the president enlarging his war powers. We see that he acknowledges that the war on terror has already come to our homeland.

In 2014, ISIS (The Islamic State) was gaining power and President Obama lacked a strategy to deal with it. At the end of the year, House Speaker John Boehner advised: “I would urge the president to submit a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) regarding our efforts to defeat and to destroy ISIL.” In that demand, Boehner was echoing constitutional scholar and then-presidential hopeful, Senator Ted Cruz and strict constitutionalist Rand Paul. Senator Cruz asserted that “initiating new military hostilities in a sustained basis in Iraq obligates the president to go back to Congress and to make the case to seek congressional authorization” and Senator Rand Paul said, “I believe the President must come to Congress to begin a war and that Congress has a duty to act. Right now, this war is illegal until Congress acts pursuant to the Constitution and authorizes it.” And so, in February 2015, President Obama asked Congress for that authorization. The US had already been bombing ISIS for six months. Ignoring the advice of Boehner, Cruz, and Paul, the White House claimed it already enjoyed the legal right to wage war under the 2001 AUMF and thus didn’t need the new authorization. But still, the White House went ahead and asked. It’s proposed AUMF would authorize force against ISIS, but only for three years. Congress never granted that AUMF, but it did go ahead and fund military actions.

Again, we note that the War on Terror is enlarging and in fact, as we learn from the events unfolding in the Middle East, the terrorist network is organizing, gaining power, and poised take over several regions. We see and that the United States is still very much determined to contain the growing evil that threatens the freedom and security of her citizens and of the world.

VI. The Korematsu v. United States decision (1944) –

The Korematsu case famously addresses the constitutionality of Japanese internment in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor by the empire of Japan. It addressed the war powers of Congress and the war powers of the President, as Commander-in-chief. The opinion, written by justice Hugo Black, held that the need to protect against espionage outweighed Fred Korematsu’s individual rights, and the rights of Americans of Japanese descent, and that the validity of action under the war power must be judged wholly in the context of war. He argued that compulsory exclusion, though constitutionally suspect, is justified during circumstances of “emergency and peril.”

The case upheld a law excluding certain Americans (American citizens, to be clear) from areas in the United States on account of national security. It found that although there was discrimination on account of nationality, which would subject that law to the most stringent of judicial scrutiny, the policy survived that scrutiny because national security required it.

We cannot forget that our country suffered an attack perhaps more horrific than Pearl Harbor on 9/11, as ordinary citizens were targeted in skyscrapers rather than military personnel. And although President Bush and his Homeland Security Department managed to keep us safe in our homeland during his two terms, President Obama and his Homeland Security team could not. In fact, as the world seemed to explode in Islamic attacks, so did our country. It seems quite clear to most people that terrorism is on the rise and that we need to ramp up both our offense and defense in this War on Terrorism.

The opinion of the Court, as delivered by Justice Hugo Black (appointed by FDR):

The petitioner, an American citizen of Japanese descent, was convicted in a federal district court for remaining in San Leandro, California, a “Military Area,” contrary to Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34 of the Commanding General of the Western Command, U.S. Army, which directed that, after May 9, 1942, all persons of Japanese ancestry should be excluded from that area. No question was raised as to petitioner’s loyalty to the United States. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, and the importance of the constitutional question involved caused us to grant certiorari.

It should be noted, to begin with, that all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can.

In the instant case, prosecution of the petitioner was begun by information charging violation of an Act of Congress, of March 21, 1942, 56 Stat. 173, which provides that:

…..whoever shall enter, remain in, leave, or commit any act in any military area or military zone prescribed, under the authority of an Executive order of the President, by the Secretary of War, or by any military commander designated by the Secretary of War, contrary to the restrictions applicable to any such area or zone or contrary to the order of the Secretary of War or any such military commander, shall, if it appears that he knew or should have known of the existence and extent of the restrictions or order and that his act was in violation thereof, be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be liable to a fine of not to exceed $5,000 or to imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, for each offense.

Exclusion Order No. 34, which the petitioner knowingly and admittedly violated, was one of a number of military orders and proclamations, all of which were substantially based upon Executive Order No. 9066, 7 Fed.Reg. 1407. That order, issued after we were at war with Japan, declared that “the successful prosecution of the war requires every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage to national defense material, national defense premises, and national defense utilities….”

One of the series of orders and proclamations, a curfew order, which, like the exclusion order here, was promulgated pursuant to Executive Order 9066, subjected all persons of Japanese ancestry in prescribed West Coast military areas to remain in their residences from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. As is the case with the exclusion order here, that prior curfew order was designed as a “protection against espionage and against sabotage.” In Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943), we sustained a conviction obtained for violation of the curfew order. The Hirabayashi conviction and this one thus rest on the same 1942 Congressional Act and the same basic executive and military orders, all of which orders were aimed at the twin dangers of espionage and sabotage.

The 1942 Act was attacked in the Hirabayashi case as an unconstitutional delegation of power; it was contended that the curfew order and other orders on which it rested were beyond the war powers of the Congress, the military authorities, and of the President, as Commander in Chief of the Army, and, finally, that to apply the curfew order against none but citizens of Japanese ancestry amounted to a constitutionally prohibited discrimination solely on account of race. To these questions, we gave the serious consideration which their importance justified. We upheld the curfew order as an exercise of the power of the government to take steps necessary to prevent espionage and sabotage in an area threatened by Japanese attack.

In the light of the principles, we announced in the Hirabayashi case, we are unable to conclude that it was beyond the war power of Congress and the Executive to exclude those of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast war area at the time they did.True, exclusion from the area in which one’s home is located is a far greater deprivation than constant confinement to the home from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Nothing short of apprehension by the proper military authorities of the gravest imminent danger to the public safety can constitutionally justify either. But exclusion from a threatened area, no less than curfew, has a definite and close relationship to the prevention of espionage and sabotage. The military authorities, charged with the primary responsibility of defending our shores, concluded that curfew provided inadequate protection and ordered exclusion. They did so, as pointed out in our Hirabayashi opinion, in accordance with Congressional authority to the military to say who should, and who should not, remain in the threatened areas.

In this case, the petitioner challenges the assumptions upon which we rested our conclusions in the Hirabayashi case. He also urges that, by May, 1942, when Order No. 34 was promulgated, all danger of Japanese invasion of the West Coast had disappeared. After careful consideration of these contentions, we are compelled to reject them.

Here, as in the Hirabayashi case:

….. we cannot reject as unfounded the judgment of the military authorities and of Congress that there were disloyal members of that population, whose number and strength could not be precisely and quickly ascertained. We cannot say that the war-making branches of the Government did not have ground for believing that, in a critical hour, such persons could not readily be isolated and separately dealt with, and constituted a menace to the national defense and safety which demanded that prompt and adequate measures be taken to guard against it.

Like curfew, exclusion of those of Japanese origin was deemed necessary because of the presence of an unascertained number of disloyal members of the group, most of whom we have no doubt were loyal to this country. It was because we could not reject the finding of the military authorities that it was impossible to bring about an immediate segregation of the disloyal from the loyal that we sustained the validity of the curfew order as applying to the whole group. In the instant case, temporary exclusion of the entire group was rested by the military on the same ground. The judgment that exclusion of the whole group was, for the same reason, a military imperative answers the contention that the exclusion was in the nature of group punishment based on antagonism to those of Japanese origin. That there were members of the group who retained loyalties to Japan has been confirmed by investigations made subsequent to the exclusion. Approximately five thousand American citizens of Japanese ancestry refused to swear unqualified allegiance to the United States and to renounce allegiance to the Japanese Emperor, and several thousand evacuees requested repatriation to Japan.

We uphold the exclusion order as of the time it was made and when the petitioner violated it. In doing so, we are not unmindful of the hardships imposed by it upon a large group of American citizens. Hardships are part of war, and war is an aggregation of hardships. All citizens alike, both in and out of uniform, feel the impact of war in greater or lesser measure. Citizenship has its responsibilities, as well as its privileges, and, in time of war, the burden is always heavier. Compulsory exclusion of large groups of citizens from their homes, except under circumstances of direst emergency and peril, is inconsistent with our basic governmental institutions. But when, under conditions of modern warfare, our shores are threatened by hostile forces, the power to protect must be commensurate with the threatened danger.

It is argued that, on May 30, 1942, the date the petitioner was charged with remaining in the prohibited area, there were conflicting orders outstanding, forbidding him both to leave the area and to remain there. Of course, a person cannot be convicted for doing the very thing which it is a crime to fail to do. But the outstanding orders here contained no such contradictory commands.

There was an order issued March 27, 1942, which prohibited petitioner and others of Japanese ancestry from leaving the area, but its effect was specifically limited in time “until and to the extent that a future proclamation or order should so permit or direct.” 7 Fed.Reg. 2601. That “future order,” the one for violation of which petitioner was convicted, was issued May 3, 1942, and it did “direct” exclusion from the area of all persons of Japanese ancestry before 12 o’clock noon, May 9; furthermore, it contained a warning that all such persons found in the prohibited area would be liable to punishment under the March 21, 1942, Act of Congress. Consequently, the only order in effect touching the petitioner’s being in the area on May 30, 1942, the date specified in the information against him, was the May 3 order which prohibited his remaining there, and it was that same order which he stipulated in his trial that he had violated, knowing of its existence. There is therefore no basis for the argument that, on May 30, 1942, he was subject to punishment, under the March 27 and May 3 orders, whether he remained in or left the area.

It does appear, however, that, on May 9, the effective date of the exclusion order, the military authorities had already determined that the evacuation should be effected by assembling together and placing under guard all those of Japanese ancestry at central points, designated as “assembly centers,” in order to insure the orderly evacuation and resettlement of Japanese voluntarily migrating from Military Area No. 1, to restrict and regulate such migration.

Public Proclamation No. 4, 7 Fed.Reg. 2601. And on May 19, 1942, eleven days before the time petitioner was charged with unlawfully remaining in the area, Civilian Restrictive Order No. 1, 8 Fed.Reg. 982, provided for detention of those of Japanese ancestry in assembly or relocation centers. It is now argued that the validity of the exclusion order cannot be considered apart from the orders requiring him, after departure from the area, to report and to remain in an assembly or relocation center. The contention is that we must treat these separate orders as one and inseparable; that, for this reason, if detention in the assembly or relocation center would have illegally deprived the petitioner of his liberty, the exclusion order and his conviction under it cannot stand.

We are thus being asked to pass at this time upon the whole subsequent detention program in both assembly and relocation centers, although the only issues framed at the trial related to petitioner’s remaining in the prohibited area in violation of the exclusion order. Had petitioner here left the prohibited area and gone to an assembly center, we cannot say, either as a matter of fact or law, that his presence in that center would have resulted in his detention in a relocation center. Some who did report to the assembly center were not sent to relocation centers, but were released upon condition that they remain outside the prohibited zone until the military orders were modified or lifted. This illustrates that they pose different problems, and may be governed by different principles. The lawfulness of one does not necessarily determine the lawfulness of the others. This is made clear when we analyze the requirements of the separate provisions of the separate orders. These separate requirements were that those of Japanese ancestry (1) depart from the area; (2) report to and temporarily remain in an assembly center; (3) go under military control to a relocation center, there to remain for an indeterminate period until released conditionally or unconditionally by the military authorities. Each of these requirements, it will be noted, imposed distinct duties in connection with the separate steps in a complete evacuation program. Had Congress directly incorporated into one Act the language of these separate orders, and provided sanctions for their violations, disobedience of any one would have constituted a separate offense. There is no reason why violations of these orders, insofar as they were promulgated pursuant to Congressional enactment, should not be treated as separate offenses.

Some of the members of the Court are of the view that evacuation and detention in an Assembly Center were inseparable. After May 3, 1942, the date of Exclusion Order No. 34, Korematsu was under compulsion to leave the area not as he would choose, but via an Assembly Center. The Assembly Center was conceived as a part of the machinery for group evacuation. The power to exclude includes the power to do it by force if necessary. And any forcible measure must necessarily entail some degree of detention or restraint, whatever method of removal is selected. But whichever view is taken, it results in holding that the order under which petitioner was convicted was valid.

It is said that we are dealing here with the case of imprisonment of a citizen in a concentration camp solely because of his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States. Our task would be simple, our duty clear, were this a case involving the imprisonment of a loyal citizen in a concentration camp because of racial prejudice. Regardless of the true nature of the assembly and relocation centers — and we deem it unjustifiable to call them concentration camps, with all the ugly connotations that term implies — we are dealing specifically with nothing but an exclusion order. To cast this case into outlines of racial prejudice, without reference to the real military dangers which were presented, merely confuses the issue. Korematsu was not excluded from the Military Area because of hostility to him or his race. He was excluded because we are at war with the Japanese Empire, because the properly constituted military authorities feared an invasion of our West Coast and felt constrained to take proper security measures, because they decided that the military urgency of the situation demanded that all citizens of Japanese ancestry be segregated from the West Coast temporarily, and, finally, because Congress, reposing its confidence in this time of war in our military leaders — as inevitably it must — determined that they should have the power to do just this. There was evidence of disloyalty on the part of some, the military authorities considered that the need for action was great, and time was short. We cannot — by availing ourselves of the calm perspective of hindsight — now say that, at that time, these actions were unjustified.

Justice Felix Frankfurter concurred in the opinion. He wrote: The provisions of the Constitution which confer on the Congress and the President powers to enable this country to wage war are as much part of the Constitution as provisions looking to a nation at peace. And we have had recent occasion to quote approvingly the statement of former Chief Justice Hughes that the war power of the Government is “the power to wage war successfully.” Hirabayashi v. United States. Therefore, the validity of action under the war power must be judged wholly in the context of war.

The Korematsu decision has not been overturned. It is still good precedent.

While there are some who think Korematsu was a bad decision, Supreme Court great William Rehnquist thinks differently. In his 1998 book All the Laws But One – Civil Liberties in Wartime, he wrote: “An entirely separate and important philosophical question is whether occasional presidential excesses and judicial restraint in wartime are desirable or undesirable. In one sense, this question is very largely academic. There is no reason to think that future wartime presidents will act differently from Lincoln, Wilson, or Roosevelt, or that future Justices of the Supreme Court will decide questions differently than their predecessors.”

VI. Kerry v. Din (2015) —

The Kerry v. Din case is a recent case which speaks to the rights that foreign nationals are entitled to with respect to coming to the United States, and particularly when they come from a country that has a history of terrorism. If a person believes he or she has a right to something, such as “Life, Liberty, or Property,” then a violation of such, including imprisonment, confiscation, condemnation, a denial of an essential liberty right, triggers Due Process rights (that is, a process to challenge that denial under our constitution). When Due Process is violated, then there is potential Due Process violation, challengeable under the 5th amendment or 14th amendment (depending whether the denial is by the federal government or the state, respectively). In Kerry, the Supreme Court held: “No Due Process is owed when these interests are not at stake.” A foreign national (non-US citizen, not living in the US) is not entitled to a Due Process challenge because he has no rights that are respected by the US Constitution. Furthermore, he has no standing to bring suit in the United States for such a violation.

The case concerns a US citizen who married a citizen and resident of Afghanistan (that is, citizen of the latter). Fauzia Din, who is a United States citizen, filed a visa petition for her husband Kanishka Berashk, a citizen and resident of Afghanistan. She wanted to bring him to the United States. Nine months later, the State Department denied the petition based on a broad provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that excludes aliens on terrorism-related grounds. Berashk asked for clarification of the visa denial and was told that it is not possible for the Embassy to provide him with a detailed explanation of the reasons for denial.

After several other unsuccessful attempts to receive explanation of the visa denial, Din sued and argued that denying notice for aliens who were not granted a visa based on terrorism grounds is unconstitutional. The federal district court held that Din did not have standing to challenge the visa denial notice. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and held that the government is required to give notice of reasons for visa denial based on terrorism grounds. The Ninth Circuit held two things: (1) that a U.S. citizen has a protected liberty interest in her marriage that entitled her to review of the denial of a visa to her non-U.S.-citizen spouse, and (2) that the US government deprived her of that liberty interest when it denied the spouse’s visa application without providing a more detailed explanation of its reasons.

The case was appealed to the Supreme Court in 2013 and was decided in 2015. The question presented was this: “Is the government required to give a detailed explanation for denying an alien’s visa based on terrorism-related ground under the Immigration and Nationality Act?”

In a 5-4 decision for Kerry, delivered by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court held that Mrs. Din was not deprived of any constitutional rights in the due process of law by denying a full explanation of why an alien’s visa was denied. The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment states that no citizen may be deprived of “life, liberty, or property” without due process, but judicial precedent has held that no due process is owed when these interests are not at stake. Because none of these interests are implicated in the denial of a nonresident alien’s visa application, there is no denial of due process when the visa application is rejected without explanation. Although “liberty” has been construed to refer to fundamental rights, there is no precedent that supports the contention that the right to live with one’s spouse is such a fundamental right.

The Court agreed with Secretary John Kerry (State Department) that the U.S. has never recognized a liberty interest in having a citizen’s alien spouse admitted to the U.S, and that Congress has plenary power to deny admission. As Scalia wrote: “Neither Din’s right to live with her spouse nor her right to live within this country is implicated here. There is a “simple distinction between government action that directly affects a citizen’s legal rights, or imposes a direct restraint on his liberty, and action that is directed against a third party and affects the citizen only indirectly or incidentally.” The Government has not refused to recognize Din’s marriage to Berashk, and Din remains free to live with her husband anywhere in the world that both individuals are permitted to reside. And the Government has not expelled Din from the country. It has simply determined that Kanishka Berashk engaged in terrorist activities within the meaning of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and has therefore denied him admission into the country.”

The Court further analyzed whether procedural due process requires consular officials to give notice of reasons for denying a visa application. In Justice Anthony Kennedy’s concurring opinion, he wrote: “Notice requirements do not apply when, as in this case, a visa application is denied due to terrorism or national security concerns.” Because the consular officials satisfied notice requirements, there was no need for the Court to address the constitutional question about the right to live with one’s spouse. Furthermore, Kennedy reasoned that because the decision was made based on a “facially legitimate and bona fide reason,” the courts need not look any further, especially when national security is involved. He wrote that notice requirements “do not apply when, as in this case, a visa application is denied due to terrorism or national security concerns.”

VIII. No Discrimination –

The Left and the media has been misrepresenting President Trump’s Executive Order on immigration and refugee admission as a “Muslim ban” – or, more cleverly, a ban on immigration from “Muslim-majority countries.” In truth, the ban applies to everyone from the countries of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – Muslim, Christian, whatever. In fact, one of the first families caught at the airport when the executive order went into effect was a Christian family from Syria.

These seven nations were not chosen at random. They were all singled out as exceptional security risks in the Terrorist Prevention Act of 2015 and its 2016 extension. In fact, President Trump’s order does not even name the seven countries. It merely refers to the sections of U.S. Code that were changed by the Terrorist Prevention Act, signed by President Obama in 2015 and then extended in 2016.

The list of seven nations which was compiled by Obama’s Department of Homeland Security, actually goes back to Obama’s first term, around 2011. Obama made this list, not Donald Trump, and there was very little resistance from congressional Democrats at any step in the process singling out these countries for the potential danger they pose (or for the inability to provide adequate information on their citizens). And that speaks volumes. There was no resistance because the list was perfectly sensible.

Again, on its face, the Executive Order is neutral. Only the Left reads discrimination into it. Only the Left puts the concerns and rights of non-citizens above those of citizens.

But even if the travel ban were discriminatory, the Supreme Court, in Korematsu, explained how we assess its constitutionality or lack thereof. Justice Black wrote: “It should be noted, to begin with, that all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect. That is not to say that all such restrictions are unconstitutional. It is to say that courts must subject them to the most rigid scrutiny. Pressing public necessity may sometimes justify the existence of such restrictions; racial antagonism never can.” In other words, the burden on civil liberties is to be balanced with the public necessity. The burden may also be balanced with the severity of the threat to national security. In short, we have to ensure that government strikes the proper balance between liberty and security, with the greater weight placed properly. A nation devoted to the liberties of its citizens can only live up to those promises as long as it continues to exist. If the nation is cannibalized by the very freedoms that it seeks to protect so that its very existence is threatened, then no one’s rights are secure. Liberty no longer has a safe haven.

If we were to balance the burden on civil liberties by the burden placed on non-citizens (who arguably have no entitlement or right to come here to the United States), in the balancing test outlined by the Supreme Court (aka, “strict scrutiny”), we would need to balance that burden by the need to protect our country and its citizens from the violent attacks that are occurring, and occurring at a greatly increased frequency, by persons of one particular religious sect (or ideology). By all accounts, those seeking to do harm to us (“Death to America!”) will seek to slip into the country through the refugee and relocation programs. We then need to evaluate that burden and ask if it is reasonable and whether there are other less burdensome policies to achieve the same result. Is a 90-day temporary ban reasonable? Is it reasonable to require those seven countries listed in the Executive Order to comply with a request from our State Department and Homeland Security Department to provide reliable and verifiable information on its nationals so that the United States can properly assess and vet these individuals for entry into our cities and communities?

We are not talking about the issue of whether non-citizens living in the United States should be recognized with similar rights as citizens (minus the right to vote and hold office). We are talking about the right to come here in the first place. The “right” of a foreigner to come here necessarily burdens the right of the government to control immigration and set policy for national security.

IX. No Right to Come Here —

It is settled jurisprudence that an unadmitted, non-resident alien has no right of entry into the United States and cannot challenge his denial of his visa application. In other words, he has no protections under our Constitution and no right to use it for purposes to sue. Simply put, he has no standing. [Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, cited on pg. 762 (1972)]

The decision of the Supreme Court in Kleindienst was delivered by Justice Harry Blackmun. In that decision, the Court noted Congress’ longstanding power to exclude aliens from the United States, and to set the terms and conditions of their entry. Through the Immigration and Nationality Act, Congress legitimately delegated to the executive the authority to waive a finding of inadmissibility. He described the historical pattern of increasing federal control on the admissibility of aliens, particularly regarding individuals with Communist affiliation or views. Justice Blackmun held that the Court would not intervene so long as the executive used its waiver power on the basis of a facially legitimate and bona fide reason. “In the exercise of Congress’ plenary power to exclude aliens or prescribe the conditions for their entry into this country, Congress in § 212(a)(28) of the Act has delegated conditional exercise of this power to the Executive Branch. When, as in this case, the Attorney General decides for a legitimate and bona fide reason not to waive the statutory exclusion of an alien, courts will not look behind his decision or weigh it against the First Amendment interests of those who would personally communicate with the alien.” At pp. 761-770.].

X. Standing –

The states of Washington and Minnesota alleged that it had standing to challenge the validity of President Trump’s Executive Order, claiming it would suffer irreparable injury. It alleged that the order was directed at the Muslim religion, that there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States from any persons from the countries listed in the ban which would make the religious targeting unconstitutional, and that to block Muslims from entering Washington would cause it irreparable injury. To be clear, the focus of the states’ legal challenge was the way the president’s Executive Order targeted Islam.

Michelle Bennett, lawyer for the federal government, criticized the judge’s issuing the TRO, claiming the states of Washington and Minnesota lack standing. She argues that the states can’t sue on behalf of citizens and the states and also questions the rationale for their particular claim that the ban would cause irreparable injury

What is “standing”?

“Standing” is the term for the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party’s participation in the case. In law, “standing” is the legal right to bring a lawsuit to court. Usually, it requires that the plaintiff, or the person who brings the case, has either been affected by the events in the case or will be imminently affected or harmed if the court does not address the problem. Standing is also affected by state or federal laws that apply to the events in the case, since some laws do not allow injured plaintiffs to sue certain defendants even if the plaintiff can demonstrate that she was injured by the defendant’s actions.

A plaintiff usually demonstrates that she has standing by including the following elements in her Complaint, which is the document that opens a lawsuit in court and gives the defendant some idea of what he’s being sued for. In order to show standing, most courts require the plaintiff to mention the following three things in the Complaint:

(i) Injury: The plaintiff must show either that she has been injured in a particular way or will be injured in a particular way if the court does not act to prevent it (this is the basis of many requests for injunctions). The injury can be physical, mental/emotional, financial, or an injury to one of the plaintiff’s civil rights, as long as it is a specific injury.
(ii) Causation: The plaintiff must show there’s some connection between the injury and the defendant’s actions or planned actions. In a Complaint, causation is usually shown by a single sentence linking the defendant’s acts to the plaintiff’s injury. Complicated questions involving cause in fact or proximate cause are usually saved for trial.
(iii) Addressability: The situation has to be one the court can fix in some way, whether it’s by issuing an injunction, ordering the defendant to pay damages, or by some other particular method.

In order to keep lawsuits focused on a plaintiff who was actually injured and a defendant who may be responsible, U.S. courts have, over the years, limited the kinds of cases a plaintiff has standing to bring.

Currently, a plaintiff does not have standing if any of the following are true:

(i) The plaintiff is a third party who was not injured herself, but is suing on behalf of someone who was injured. Exceptions to this rule include parents who sue on behalf of their injured children and legally-appointed guardians who sue on behalf of their wards. Courts have also allowed organizations to sue on behalf of their members in a few cases where it was obvious that all the members faced the same injury.
(ii) The plaintiff tries to sue on behalf of some large, unidentified group who may or may not be injured. Often called “taxpayer standing,” this rule prevents cases in which one plaintiff attempts to sue the government on the grounds that the plaintiff, a taxpayer, doesn’t like what the government is doing with tax revenues. So far, the only exception to this rule has been certain cases brought under the First Amendment Establishment Clause to prevent the government from funneling taxpayer dollars to particular religious institutions.

(iii) The plaintiff is not in the “zone of interest” or “zone of injury.” In other words, the plaintiff is not the kind of person a particular law was designed to protect, and/or the plaintiff is not the kind of person that lawmakers expected to be injured if they did not enact the law. For instance, a plaintiff who has severe dog allergies does not have standing to sue a dog owner for failing to license her dog, since “severe allergy attacks” were not the kind of injury the dog license law was designed to prevent, and “people with severe dog allergies” were not the kind of people the law is designed to protect. (A severe allergy sufferer may, however, have standing to sue a neighbor dog owner for nuisance or even assault if, for instance, the neighbor encourages the dog to approach the allergic plaintiff even though the neighbor knows this will make the plaintiff very ill and might even cause death.)

The state of Washington (and then Minnesota would join in) asserted it had standing to bring the challenge by claiming that the Order would “adversely affect the States’ residents in areas of employment, education, business, family relations, and freedom to travel,” and that these harms “extend to the States by virtue of their roles as parens patriae of the residents living within their borders.” Furthermore, the states claimed that they would be harmed by virtue of the damage that implementation of the Order has inflicted upon the operations and missions of their public universities and other institutions of higher learning, as well as injury to the States’ operations, tax bases, and public funds. They claimed the harm is significant and ongoing. Judge Robart agreed with the states’ position.

In issuing the Temporary Restraining Order, Judge Robart wrote: “It is an interesting question in regards to the standing of the states to bring this action. I’m sure the one item that all counsel would agree on is that the standing law is a little murky. I find, however, that the state does have standing in regards to this matter, and therefore they are properly here. And I probed with both counsel my reasons for finding that, which have to do with direct, immediate harm going to the states, as institutions, in addition to harm to their citizens, which they are not able to represent as directly.”

On the same day that Judge Robart issued the TRO (February 4), the government submitted an Emergency Motion to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit requesting that the injunction (or TRO) to be vacated.

The government’s position is that the states of Washington and Minnesota lack standing and that they failed to make a legitimate showing of standing in their motion for the TRO. In its Emergency Motion to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the government asserted:

“The district court reasoned that the Washington has Article III standing because the Order “adversely affects the States’ residents in areas of employment, education, business, family relations, and freedom to travel,” and that these harms “extend to the States by virtue of their roles as parens patriae of the residents living within their borders.” But a State cannot bring a parens patriae action against federal defendants. In dismissing Massachusetts’ challenge to a federal statute designed to “protect the health of mothers and infants” in Massachusetts v. Mellon, the Supreme Court explained that “it is no part of a State’s duty or power to enforce [its citizens’] rights in respect of their relations with the federal government.” 262 U.S. 447, 478, 485-86 (1923); South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 324 (1966). The district court also reasoned that “the States themselves are harmed by virtue of the damage that implementation of the Order has inflicted upon the operations and missions of their public universities and other institutions of higher learning, as well as injury to the States’ operations, tax bases, and public funds.” These attenuated and speculative alleged harms are neither concrete nor particularized. With respect to Washington’s public universities, most if not all of the students and faculty members the State identifies are not prohibited from entering the United States, and others’ alleged difficulties are hypothetical or speculative.

That is particularly true given the Order’s waiver authority. See Executive Order §§ 3(g), 5(e). Furthermore, any assertion of harm to the universities’ reputations and ability to attract students is insufficiently concrete for standing. Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155 (1990). And although Washington suggested that the Order might affect its recruitment efforts and child welfare system, it conceded that it could not identify any currently affected state employees, nor any actual impact on its child welfare system.

Washington’s contentions regarding its tax base and public funds are equally flawed. See Florida v. Mellon, 273 U.S. 12, 17-18 (1927) (finding no standing based on Florida’s allegation that challenged law would diminish tax base); see also, e.g., Iowa ex rel. Miller v. Block, 771 F.2d 347, 353 (8th Cir. 1985). Nor does Washington have any “legally protected interest,” Arizona Christian Sch. Tuition Org. v. Winn, 563 U.S. 125, 134 (2011), in the grant or denial of entry to an alien outside the United States. The INA’s carefully reticulated scheme provides for judicial review only at the behest of an alien adversely affected, and even then only if the alien is subject to removal proceedings, see 8 U.S.C. § 1252.

Under longstanding principles exemplified by the doctrine of consular non-reviewability, an alien abroad cannot obtain judicial review of the denial of a visa (or his failure to be admitted as a refugee). Brownell v. Tom We Shung, 352 U.S. 180, 184 (1956). It follows that a third party, like Washington, has no “judicially cognizable interest,” Linda R.S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 619 (1973), in such a denial. Or to put it in Administrative Procedure Act (APA) terms, review is precluded by the INA, the relevant determinations are committed to the Executive’s discretion (indeed, to the President, who is not subject to the APA), and Washington lacks a cause of action. 5 U.S.C. §§ 701(a), (702).”

The Ninth Circuit denied the government’s motion.

Did the Ninth Circuit engage in partisan politics by denying the government’s motion ?

XI. Conclusion —

In conclusion, in light of the government’s obligation to keep the country safe and secure, in light of its war powers, its powers with respect to immigration, foreign policy, and national security, and noting that the temporary ban is neutral with respect to the religion of the people impacted, the Executive Order should be upheld. Furthermore, even if the Order targets a class of persons, a balancing test will show that the temporary nature of the ban is more than reasonable in light of the threats posed by terrorists who may try to use the relocation efforts to gain access to the United States and do irreparable harm. Finally, the Executive Order is merely a reasonable expansion of a program that has already been in place under the previous administration.

References:

Executive Order: “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States” (Jan. 27, 2017). Referenced at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/executive-order-protecting-nation- foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states

Temporary Restraining Order (Washington v. Donald Trump, President of the United States), issued by Judge Robart. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3446391-Robart-Order.html

The FEDRAL GOVERNMENT’S APPEAL: of The State of Wasington’s Emergency Motion for Administrative Stay and Motion for Stay Pending Appeal (State of Washington v. Donald Trump, President of the United States, in the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit) – http://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000015a-0c44-d96b-a7fe-1efdf8da0001

8 U.S. Code §1187 – Visa Waiver Program for Certain Visitors. Referenced at: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1187

Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). 8 U.S.C. 1187, Section 217 – VISA WAIVER 2/ PROGRAM FOR CERTAIN VISITORS. Referenced at: https://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/0-0-0-1/0-0-0-29/0-0-0-4391.html

8 U.S Code Chapter 12: IMMIGRATION and NATURALIZATION – aka, The Immigration and Naturality Act of 1952. Referenced at: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/chapter-12

“A Constitutional Basis for Defense,” The Heritage Foundation. Referenced at: http://www.heritage.org/defense/report/constitutional-basis-defense

Matthew I. Hirsch, “The Visa Waiver Program,” (8 U.S.C. 1187, Section 217: Visa. Waiver Waiver”) Referenced: http://hirschlaw1.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/website.aila_.visawaiver.pdf

John Howard, “The Seven Nations Covered by Trump’s Executive Order,” Breitbart, Jan. 30, 2017. Referenced at: http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/01/30/7-nations-named-trump-executive-order-security-nightmares/

Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944). https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/323/214

Kerry v. Din, 576 U.S. ___ (2015). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-1402_e29g.pdf

Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753 (1972). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/408/753/case.html

Asra Q. Nomani, “This is Daniel Pearl’s Final Story,” Washingtonian. Referenced at: https://www.washingtonian.com/projects/KSM/

Sean Hannity, “There are Four Times the US Stopped Immigrants from a Particular Group.

Referenced at:  http://www.hannity.com/articles/immigration-487258/here-are-four-previous-times-the-14188916/

Daniel Greenfield, “When Roosevelt Banned Muslims from America,” Frontpagemag, August 18, 2016.  Referenced at:  http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/263879/when-teddy-roosevelt-banned-muslims-america-daniel-greenfield

Ann M. Simmons and Alan Zarembo, “Other Presidents Have Blocked Groups of Foreigners from the US, But Never So Broadly,” LA Times, January 31, 2017.  Referenced at:  http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-immigrant-ban-history-20170130-story.html

The Alien & Sedition Acts, Constitutional Rights Foundation.  Referenced at:  http://www.crf-usa.org/america-responds-to-terrorism/the-alien-and-sedition-acts.html

 

What is Standing? (Rottenstein Law Group). http://www.rotlaw.com/legal-library/what-is-standing/

Washington shopping mall mass shooter – an illegal immigrant (from a Muslim country) who voted 3 times. Referenced at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cDwCK3Dpcg [Published on Sep 28, 2016. A man who went on a shooting rampage in a store in the Cascade Mall in Burlington, Washington is in custody, accused of killing five people. The suspect, Arcan Cetin, a 20-year-old, is being charged with five counts of first-degree premeditated murder. There’s also another element to the story that could result in other charges for Cetin. The Cascade mall shooter isn’t a U.S. citizen, but voted in 3 election cycles. From King 5: The Cascade Mall shooting suspect, Arcan Cetin, may face an additional investigation related to his voting record and citizenship status. Federal sources confirm to KING 5 that Cetin was not a U.S. citizen, meaning legally he cannot vote. However, state records show Cetin registered to vote in 2014 and participated in three election cycles, including the May presidential primary. While voters must attest to citizenship upon registering online or registering to vote at the Department of Licensing Office, Washington state doesn’t require proof of citizenship. Therefore, elections officials say the state’s elections system operates, more or less, under an honor system. — Just a couple years ago, then-Attorney General Eric Holder said vote fraud was “a problem that doesn’t exist.” They operate on the honor system? What could go wrong? — That can’t be so. We’ve been assured voter fraud is a myth. The story doesn’t say who Cetin voted for. This story highlights that immigration laws and criminal laws aren’t the only laws that illegal immigrants break and are breaking. Why was FOX News the only national news organization covering this story?

Justice Jeanine Pirro (Justice with Jeanine) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSsjcLUM6xI

APPENDIX:

Executive Order: “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States (Jan. 27, 2017)

EXECUTIVE ORDER

Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, including the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq., and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and to protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Secti  on 1. Purpose. The visa-issuance process plays a crucial role in detecting individuals with terrorist ties and stopping them from entering the United States. Perhaps in no instance was that more apparent than the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when State Department policy prevented consular officers from properly scrutinizing the visa applications of several of the 19 foreign nationals who went on to murder nearly 3,000 Americans. And while the visa-issuance process was reviewed and amended after the September 11 attacks to better detect would-be terrorists from receiving visas, these measures did not stop attacks by foreign nationals who were admitted to the United States.
Numer  ous foreign-born individuals have been convicted or implicated in terrorism-related crimes since September 11, 2001, including foreign nationals who entered the United States after receiving visitor, student, or employment visas, or who entered through the United States refugee resettlement program. Deteriorating conditions in certain countries due to war, strife, disaster, and civil unrest increase the likelihood that terrorists will use any means possible to enter the United States. The United States must be vigilant during the visa-issuance process to ensure that those approved for admission do not intend to harm Americans and that they have no ties to terrorism.
der to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.
Sec.   2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from foreign nationals who intend to commit terrorist attacks in the United States; and to prevent the admission of foreign nationals who intend to exploit United States immigration laws for malevolent purposes.
Sec.   3. Suspension of Issuance of Visas and Other Immigration Benefits to Nationals of Countries of Particular Concern. (a) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall immediately conduct a review to determine the information needed from any country to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under the INA (adjudications) in order to determine that the individual seeking the benefit is who the individual claims to be and is not a security or public-safety threat.
(b)   The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall submit to the President a report on the results of the review described in subsection (a) of this section, including the Secretary of Homeland Security’s determination of the information needed for adjudications and a list of countries that do not provide adequate information, within 30 days of the date of this order. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide a copy of the report to the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence.
(c) To temporarily reduce investigative burdens on relevant agencies during the review period described in subsection (a) of this section, to ensure the proper review and maximum utilization of available resources for the screening of foreign nationals, and to ensure that adequate standards are established to prevent infiltration by foreign terrorists or criminals, pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas).
(d) Immediately upon receipt of the report described in subsection (b) of this section regarding the information needed for adjudications, the Secretary of State shall request all foreign governments that do not supply such information to start providing such information regarding their nationals within 60 days of notification.
(e) After the 60-day period described in subsection (d) of this section expires, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall submit to the President a list of countries recommended for inclusion on a Presidential proclamation that would prohibit the entry of foreign nationals (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas) from countries that do not provide the information requested pursuant to subsection (d) of this section until compliance occurs.
(f) At any point after submitting the list described in subsection (e) of this section, the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Homeland Security may submit to the President the names of any additional countries recommended for similar treatment.
(g) Notwithstanding a suspension pursuant to subsection (c) of this section or pursuant to a Presidential proclamation described in subsection (e) of this section, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may, on a case-by-case basis, and when in the national interest, issue visas or other immigration benefits to nationals of countries for which visas and benefits are otherwise blocked.
(h) The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall submit to the President a joint report on the progress in implementing this order within 30 days of the date of this order, a second report within 60 days of the date of this order, a third report within 90 days of the date of this order, and a fourth report within 120 days of the date of this order.

Sec. 4. Implementing Uniform Screening Standards for All Immigration Programs. (a) The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall implement a program, as part of the adjudication process for immigration benefits, to identify individuals seeking to enter the United States on a fraudulent basis with the intent to cause harm, or who are at risk of causing harm subsequent to their admission. This program will include the development of a uniform screening standard and procedure, such as in-person interviews; a database of identity documents proffered by applicants to ensure that duplicate documents are not used by multiple applicants; amended application forms that include questions aimed at identifying fraudulent answers and malicious intent; a mechanism to ensure that the applicant is who the applicant claims to be; a process to evaluate the applicant’s likelihood of becoming a positively contributing member of society and the applicant’s ability to make contributions to the national interest; and a mechanism to assess whether or not the applicant has the intent to commit criminal or terrorist acts after entering the United States.
(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Secretary of State, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, shall submit to the President an initial report on the progress of this directive within 60 days of the date of this order, a second report within 100 days of the date of this order, and a third report within 200 days of the date of this order.
Sec. 5. Realignment of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for Fiscal Year 2017. (a) The Secretary of State shall suspend the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) for 120 days. During the 120-day period, the Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Secretary of Homeland Security and in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence, shall review the USRAP application and adjudication process to determine what additional procedures should be taken to ensure that those approved for refugee admission do not pose a threat to the security and welfare of the United States, and shall implement such additional procedures. Refugee applicants who are already in the USRAP process may be admitted upon the initiation and completion of these revised procedures. Upon the date that is 120 days after the date of this order, the Secretary of State shall resume USRAP admissions only for nationals of countries for which the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence have jointly determined that such additional procedures are adequate to ensure the security and welfare of the United States.
(b) Upon the resumption of USRAP admissions, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by law, to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality. Where necessary and appropriate, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall recommend legislation to the President that would assist with such prioritization.
(c) Pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the entry of nationals of Syria as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the United States and thus suspend any such entry until such time as I have determined that sufficient changes have been made to the USRAP to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest.
(d);Pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the entry of more than 50,000 refugees in fiscal year 2017 would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and thus suspend any such entry until such time as I determine that additional admissions would be in the national interest.
(e) Notwithstanding the temporary suspension imposed pursuant to subsection (a) of this section, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may jointly determine to admit individuals to the United States as refugees on a case-by-case basis, in their discretion, but only so long as they determine that the admission of such individuals as refugees is in the national interest — including when the person is a religious minority in his country of nationality facing religious persecution, when admitting the person would enable the United States to conform its conduct to a preexisting international agreement, or when the person is already in transit and denying admission would cause undue hardship — and it would not pose a risk to the security or welfare of the United States.
(f) The Secretary of State shall submit to the President an initial report on the progress of the directive in subsection (b) of this section regarding prioritization of claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution within 100 days of the date of this order and shall submit a second report within 200 days of the date of this order.
(g) It is the policy of the executive branch that, to the extent permitted by law and as practicable, State and local jurisdictions be granted a role in the process of determining the placement or settlement in their jurisdictions of aliens eligible to be admitted to the United States as refugees. To that end, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall examine existing law to determine the extent to which, consistent with applicable law, State and local jurisdictions may have greater involvement in the process of determining the placement or resettlement of refugees in their jurisdictions, and shall devise a proposal to lawfully promote such involvement.
Sec. 6. Rescission of Exercise of Authority Relating to the Terrorism Grounds of Inadmissibility. The Secretaries of State and Homeland Security shall, in consultation with the Attorney General, consider rescinding the exercises of authority in section 212 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182, relating to the terrorism grounds of inadmissibility, as well as any related implementing memoranda.
Sec. 7. Expedited Completion of the Biometric Entry-Exit Tracking System. (a) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall expedite the completion and implementation of a biometric entry-exit tracking system for all travelers to the United States, as recommended by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit to the President periodic reports on the progress of the directive contained in subsection (a) of this section. The initial report shall be submitted within 100 days of the date of this order, a second report shall be submitted within 200 days of the date of this order, and a third report shall be submitted within 365 days of the date of this order. Further, the Secretary shall submit a report every 180 days thereafter until the system is fully deployed and operational.
Sec. 8. Visa Interview Security. (a) The Secretary of State shall immediately suspend the Visa Interview Waiver Program and ensure compliance with section 222 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1222, which requires that all individuals seeking a nonimmigrant visa undergo an in-person interview, subject to specific statutory exceptions.
(b) To the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations, the Secretary of State shall immediately expand the Consular Fellows Program, including by substantially increasing the number of Fellows, lengthening or making permanent the period of service, and making language training at the Foreign Service Institute available to Fellows for assignment to posts outside of their area of core linguistic ability, to ensure that non-immigrant visa-interview wait times are not unduly affected.
Sec. 9. Visa Validity Reciprocity. The Secretary of State shall review all nonimmigrant visa reciprocity agreements to ensure that they are, with respect to each visa classification, truly reciprocal insofar as practicable with respect to validity period and fees, as required by sections 221(c) and 281 of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1201(c) and 1351, and other treatment. If a country does not treat United States nationals seeking nonimmigrant visas in a reciprocal manner, the Secretary of State shall adjust the visa validity period, fee schedule, or other treatment to match the treatment of United States nationals by the foreign country, to the extent practicable.
Sec. 10. Transparency and Data Collection. (a) To be more transparent with the American people, and to more effectively implement policies and practices that serve the national interest, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall, consistent with applicable law and national security, collect and make publicly available within 180 days, and every 180 days thereafter:
(i) information regarding the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been charged with terrorism-related offenses while in the United States; convicted of terrorism-related offenses while in the United States; or removed from the United States based on terrorism-related activity, affiliation, or material support to a terrorism-related organization, or any other national security reasons since the date of this order or the last reporting period, whichever is later;
(ii) information regarding the number of foreign nationals in the United States who have been radicalized after entry into the United States and engaged in terrorism-related acts, or who have provided material support to terrorism-related organizations in countries that pose a threat to the United States, since the date of this order or the last reporting period, whichever is later; and
(iii) information regarding the number and types of acts of gender-based violence against women, including honor killings, in the United States by foreign nationals, since the date of this order or the last reporting period, whichever is later; and
(iv) any other information relevant to public safety and security as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General, including information on the immigration status of foreign nationals charged with major offenses.    (b) The Secretary of State shall, within one year of the date of this order, provide a report on the estimated long-term costs of the USRAP at the Federal, State, and local levels.    Sec. 11. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.    (c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

DONALD J. TRUMP

History Speaks Through the Monuments on the National Mall

by Diane Rufino, January 21, 2017

Yesterday I visited the Jefferson Memorial to commune with my favorite Founding Father. Jefferson is perhaps the single reason I am so very proud to be an American. The principles he articulated in the Declaration of Independence, which the Second Continental Congress adopted in 1776, laid the basis for our independence from Great Britain. It established the principles and government philosophy that defines us as a nation, and although it’s message is lost on most Americans, I am sure to remind my students how it laid the basis for government by proclaiming that power originates with the individual and that power can never be fully divested from them. The Declaration informed Britain and the rest of the world that the thirteen colonies were dedicated first and foremost to the recognition and preservation of individual liberty. To that end, they proclaimed “to a candid world” that individuals of those colonies have the natural right to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. In other words, government serves the people and its primary role is, and should be, to protect their rights. Nowhere in our founding documents does it state that government is a permanent fixture. Nowhere does it provide that the government has the right to seeks its longevity or its permanence. Rather, it exists in form and organization just as long as it serves its legitimate ends. The people always have the right – even the duty – to alter or abolish it when it frustrates its purpose.  Jefferson and Madison, along with our other Founders, knew full well that power would corrupt if it was centralized enough in government, then government would eventually limit or even deny rights away to the people. And in many instances, we see that the fears of our Founders have come to fruition.

What I learned from Jefferson is that when it comes to citizenship, it is perhaps more important to represent an idea or an ideal than merely a physical location.

And so I sat inside the rotunda and gazed up for awhile at this under-appreciated Founding Father. I walked around the room and read some of his poignant quotes memorialized on the walls and reflected on their timeless message. Sadly, to some degree, our government has rejected his wisdom.  Then I went outside the rotunda and looked straight across the tidal basin towards the rest of the National Mall. I could easily see the Washington Monument.  And I could also see the White House.  What I couldn’t see was the Lincoln Memorial.  I thought about that for a moment. And then I began to  note its significance.

It’s true that the Jefferson Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial are not visible to one another. I think there is a reason for that, whether or not it was a conscious factor in the Mall’s design. Abraham Lincoln didn’t see eye to eye with Jefferson. In fact, his vision of government was quite different. While the Declaration of Independence clearly provides that individuals can alter or abolish their government, Lincoln adamantly proclaimed that the Union, and by extension the federal government, was to be perpetual. In fact, after he repeatedly ignored and even violated provisions of the Constitution, suspended habeas corpus, imprisoned journalists, publishers, newspaper owners, citizens and seized their property, waged war without a declaration, etc, he sought a resolution from Congress to excuse those violations. Such a resolution was proposed and it read: “For the preservation of the federal government,”…..  Congress would the actions of President Lincoln.  (The resolution was never voted upon because the session of Congress concluded for the year). Lincoln had to ignore the principles laid down in the Declaration if he was to use force to bring the South back into the Union and convince the North that he had the power to do so.

President Lincoln destroyed the notion of limited government and its relationship to the individual, as promised in the Declaration, and our country has never sought to reclaim those ideals. Why?  Because government had become so strong and no one, no state, and certainly no government official had the guts to challenge the creature that the government had become. States have cowered and caved. They have tacitly relinquished their independence and have become subjugated to the design and will of the federal government. Perhaps that is why, when the government designed the National Mall, it put the memorial to Abraham Lincoln at the most prestigious position. Its layout is spectacular; Lincoln sits on high, looking out over a long reflecting pool, to the strongest branch of government – Congress. Lincoln is rewarded and glorified because he is the president who achieved the most in transforming the government into one of great power and influence and coercion over its independent parts (the States). Lincoln, in a sense, destroyed the ideals that inspired our founding generation to fight for their independence.

The Jefferson Memorial directly faces the White House – the home of our President and Chief Executive. The White House does not face the Lincoln Memorial.  Could it be that this lay-out was intended to remind Presidents of Jefferson’s ideals and the principles of government outlined in the Declaration?  Could it be that the president of the United States should forever be reminded that government is not a tool of an ambitious president (as it was for Abraham Lincoln) but rather an institution which serves the people and their interests in life, liberty, and happiness.

Something to think about.

What I can say is that when I listened to Donald Trump’s inaugural address – and particularly the part when he announced: “Every four years we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power….  Today’s ceremony, however, has a very special meaning because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the people.”  — I couldn’t help but smile and think to myself how Jeffersonian he sounded.

Maybe, at least for the next few years, we can enjoy a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Maybe Trump, in fact, gets it.

Abortion, Trump Derangement Syndrom, and the Women’s March on DC

by Diane Rufino, January 25, 2017

Last week, I drove to our nation’s capital from North Carolina to witness the swearing-in of the 45^th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, and to celebrate with like-minded Americans his inauguration. It was a great day – an electric day!!  The next, Saturday, I woke up in my hotel room and prepared for a full day of walking around the national mall, visiting all the monuments and memorials, and then finishing up at the Supreme Court building, a place I’ve never been able to visit on all my prior visits to DC. I had no idea that a bunch of protesters were beginning to assemble. I had not heard about the Women’s March on DC.

But I soon found out. Heading out of the hotel, I saw some women with crazy-looking knitted pink hats on their heads. And then I saw some men with the same hats on.  What was going on?  A lady walking down the street with me told me the story. There was going to be a big march – Women’s March – down Pennsylvania Ave. to the Capitol, to protest Trump’s inauguration and to “stand up for their rights” and their issues. The organizers of the event, including Linda Sarsour (executive director of the Arab American Organization of New York and an activist seeking Sharia Law in the US), encouraged participants to wear pink hats to show solidarity and hence, to feel empowered. The pink hats are “pussyhats” – a sartorial reference to a comment that Mr. Trump made, which was captured in an audio, about Hollywood women being so loose that you can “grab them by the ***** (genitals).” The comment was made 12-13 years ago.

We both asked each other the same question: “Where were the marches and the protests years ago when Democratic president Bill Clinton was serially objectifying women and sexually harassing them?  Why weren’t women outraged then?”  Clinton actually put his hands and mouth on women and using his position of power as president of the most powerful nation in the world, coerced women for sexual favors such as oral sex in the Oval Office while Donald Trump merely talked about it in a moment of male bravado with another man.

So, it couldn’t be Trump’s treatment of women that worked these women up in a frenzy. They were clearly content to look the other way when the conduct came from someone of their own political party. They were clearly content to look the other way when the conduct was far more objectifying and harassing. And they were perfectly fine voting for and then supporting via protest the day after Trump’s inauguration for a woman (Hillary Clinton) who used her power as the president’s wife to further harass, intimidate, slander, and otherwise destroy the victims’ reputation and credibility. When women did not readily submit, offer their body parts and “services” to her husband and then remain quiet about it, she took the active role in protecting her husband’s position rather than standing up for the very rights and dignity women in the march were so vocally protesting for. Again, the march could not be simply about Trump’s use of a crass term.

Walking further into the Lion’s den, I noticed signs that read “We Stand for Women’s Rights” and “Equality for Women.” And so, I thought about the rights that these women might be referring to. Women can vote (19^th Amendment), they cannot be discriminated in hiring (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964), and they cannot be paid differently for the same job under the same conditions (again, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964).  Not only are women’s rights protected under the law, but if they believe they are discriminated against, they have a cause of action to sue and seek justice.

What about LGBT rights?  In 2015, the Supreme Court, in Obergefell v. Hodges, handed its opinion down that homosexuals and lesbians have the right marry.  If heterosexuals can marry, then under an equal protection argument, homosexuals and lesbians have that right too.  Donald Trump doesn’t have a problem with same-sex marriage but he believes the Supreme Court over-stepped his authority by making it a national policy when the decision should have been left to each state independently.  I believe Trump is absolutely correct in this position.  Marriage is historically a state issue only, pursuant to its police powers.

My guess is that the LGBT participants were just protesting because they don’t like Trump, don’t like what he stands for (ie, not a progressive), and don’t want him as the president.

Once I got to Jefferson Ave and then Independence Ave (heading to the Jefferson Memorial), and trying to navigate through the crowds coalescing closer towards Pennsylvania Ave, there was one theme that rang out more loudly than the others. The countless signs speaking to the unfettered right of women over her body and fertility, abortion rights, and the right to have healthcare cover it all was all I needed to see to understand that one of the main purposes of the Women’s March was to show their joint support for their right to an abortion. According to these “Women’s Rights” protesters, Roe v. Wade was a great decision which essentially gave women the right to abort a pregnancy at any time for any reason without any government interference. It’s their body, they claim, and they are entitled to have complete control over what is done with it. They also want their health insurance to cover their abortions. That is, they want taxpayers to pay for them. “It’s My Body; My Choice.  But I want YOU to Pay for It!”  They are in full panic mode because of Trump’s promise to repeal the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which among other things requires health insurers to cover birth control, and his very vocal position on the future make-up of the Supreme Court so that it values the life of the unborn.

By the way, when did “Women’s Rights” become synonymous with the right to terminate the life of a living but yet unborn child?  That logic seems to boils down to this: “My life would be easier without this baby in it and I have the right over my own life and destiny. And besides, that baby’s life is inconsequential and not valuable.”  And so, the woman terminates that baby’s life for her ease and comfort.

Perhaps it was the March for Life that was going to take place in six days (Friday, January 27), in concert with the President’s inauguration, that convinced the protesters to march when they did.  Perhaps it was a brilliant plan to invite women holding any of a myriad of grievances against Donald Trump to march at the same time. This way, they could claim on January 21 that the march was in protest of his election and then claim for purposes of the national debate on abortion (v. the Right to Life) that the rally was in support of abortion and was larger than the March for Life. There is power in numbers. And we all know how the liberal media loves numbers (and loves to misrepresent them too!). To see how the organizers reached out to all groups who oppose Trump, simply read their manifesto – their “Guiding Vision and Principles of the Women’s March on Washington.”  *

While the protest was officially designed to be an anti-Trump event, the sea of pink hats sent the equally-collective message that the march was in support of abortion rights. The march therefore, served two purposes for the Left.

As it turns out, the organizers of the march refused to recognize and allow any groups who are not in favor of abortion to be officially part of the march. The biggest sponsor of the march was Planned Parenthood and other support flowed from none other than George Soros. According to the mission statement for the march (“Overview & Purpose” *), the purpose of the march is to demonstrate for a particular vision of government which recognizes their views. The first of these reads: “We believe that Women’s Rights are Human Rights and Human Rights are Women’s Rights. This is the basic and original tenet for which we unite to March on Washington.” In other words, it was a protest against President Trump and his new administration. The statement or manifesto goes on to elaborate other reasons for rallying against Trump, including that “the rhetoric of the past election cycle has insulted, demonized, and threatened” women of all different communities.

According to the website listing the groups affiliated with the march, what united the groups was their demand for “open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people.” This, apparently, summed up what they considered their essential “Women’s Rights.”  The other themes – equality in the workplace, open immigration, non-registry for immigrants and refugees from Islamic countries – were just peripheral; just additional scenery; just another ruse to get as many warm bodies to march in what would ultimately be a show of hatred of Donald Trump. Women who did not vote for Trump but were pro-life were taken off the official list of marchers and not recognized. And they were made to feel that they are not “woman enough” because somehow they have sold out the gender. In fact, organizer Linda Sarsour had this message for them – If you show up, you better understand that you are going to be counted as among those who support a woman’s right to choose. The only women who were officially associated with the march and listed as part of the event were those who oppose President Trump AND who are pro-abortion. The Women’s March essentially declared that pro-life women do not have a place at the event, even if a woman is an ally on every other issue that the protest claims to fight for.

Any pretext that the march would present an intelligent articulation of the protesters’ grievances was thrown out the window when the actress Ashley Judd took the stage.  She said that she, and other protesters, who want to terminate a pregnancy up until the day before delivery, are “nasty women,” but “not as nasty as the man in the White House.”  She read a thrash poem written by a 19-year-old community college student Nina Donovan who was enraged that Donald Trump referred to Hillary Clinton as a “nasty woman” during the campaign.

It was a vile poem by a young girl who has been brainwashed and stupefied by the rantings of progressives who have long turned a blind eye to the misdeeds of Democrats and who have tied themselves to the party of every group seeking to erode and destroy the fabric of the United States or otherwise parasitize and weaken everything good that we once stood for and the party that seeks to destroy everything good and decent in our society for the greater goal of absolute personal freedom without any accountability or consequence.

Any pretext that the march would be civil and dignified was thrown out the window when Madonna, the skanky, sex-obsessed star of the 80’s, took the podium. She talked about the march being the start of a revolution. “We refuse as women to accept this new age of tyranny. Where not just women are in danger but all marginalized people. It took us this darkness to wake us the fuck up….  It seems as though we had all slipped into a false sense of comfort. That justice would prevail and that good would win in the end. Well, good did not win this election…  Let’s march together through this darkness and with each step. Know that we are not afraid. That we are not alone, that we will not back down. That there is power in our unity…  To our detractors that insist that this March will never add up to anything, fuck you. Fuck you.”  She concluded by saying: “Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot of blowing up the White House….”  Apparently, she also performed, torturing thousands. During her so-called performance of “Human Nature,” she cheerfully told President Trump to “suck a d—k.”  Always the epitome of grace and class, Madonna didn’t disappoint.

Madonna is washed-up and used-up. She may not want to give up, but sure wish she would shut up.

And I wish all of Hollywood would too.  I mean, where does anyone in Hollywood or in the sex industry (I mean, pop music industry), have the moral high ground to criticize the conduct of anyone?  Hollywood and cinema oozes sexual exploitation. Movies are filled with nudity, sex scenes, inappropriate attitudes towards sexuality, and cheapened roles of women in society. Pop singers dress provocatively and dance suggestively. Their music videos are glorified soft porn videos. Sex sells. I can’t even begin to describe what rappers and the women they associate with sing about, dance about, and do in their videos. All of these entertainers, most of who associate with the types who protest Donald Trump and who support the Women’s March, are hypocrites. Their personal lives are rife with scandal, affairs, drugs, children out-of-wedlock, marriages that barely last a year, boob jobs, liposuction, and plastic surgery. In other words, they live their lives without consequence and display a total lack of morals. They wouldn’t know what the inside of a church looks like or understand why the family unit is important to society.  They would do well to look in the mirror and understand that their conduct and immorality has done more to undermine the legitimacy and status of women in our society than any comment that Trump has made. It is their conduct that has led to the current trend where young women put themselves out there to be objectified and cheapened. They cheapen themselves through the way they act. And when men happen to take notice, they clamor for the so-called right to be treated with “dignity” and not as sex objects.

The feminazis (a term used here to denote their use of propaganda to deceive and breed hatred) certainly worked themselves up into in a frenzy feeding on their collective disdain for Trump and then diluted their followers into believing that he will use his presidency to strip them of their “Women’s Rights.”  I’m sure they believe that.  Perhaps they believe that if they make enough noise and show enough numbers that Trump will rethink his position, rethink his policies, and abandon his choices for the high court.

Putting aside the vulgarity and the hate and the incendiary language and the hype that women will be losing their rights under a Trump presidency, and putting aside the obvious solidarity the protesters showed for their right to an abortion ahead of the March for Life, the march was held for one reason and one reason only – to lash out at the fact that they LOST the election and to show their disdain for the great man who won the election. It wasn’t so much a march for women as it was a march against President Trump. The march, first and foremost, was intended to stain Trump’s perfect inaugural week-end, and through its numbers, attempt to make the case (thru the liberal media) that Trump’s election was somehow illegitimate and that he is a threat to the rights of so many citizens. It was intended to embarrass him, to emphasize the point of the liberal media that Trump is a divider and not a unifier, and provide fodder for the liberal media so that they didn’t have to provide coverage of the exciting day that he had being sworn in as our new president.  In fact, one of the most common signs was one that read: “NOT MY PRESIDENT.”   [And “Pussies Against Trump!”]

I’m not saying the March for Women was not enormous and imposing in its scope. It was. It was clearly well-organized and fueled by a deep hatred by most groups comprising the Left for our new president…  a hatred that no protester could articulate rationally. In the days following the rally, critics have made this point over and over again. Why was the Communist Party marching with the Women’s March?  Why were groups supporting Sharia Law marching? Surely, Sharia Law can’t be compatible with the rights articulated by the March’s mission statement. Hypocrisy and offensive conduct defeated the impact of the protest. Where were the protests when Democrats were objectifying women?  Why wasn’t Joe Biden vilified and called a racist when he said that then-Sen. Barack Obama was the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Rather, he was embraced as the choice for vice-president.  What is so unbecoming a woman who wants to express the view that her body be respected for the life it can bring forth that she was unwelcome to march alongside the others?

How glaring was the irony in removing a pro-life sponsor from the Women’s March?  In doing so, they showcased the same divisiveness, intolerance, and discrimination as the claims they wheeled against the man who now sits in the White House and whose election they so energetically protested against.  How ironic is it that the Women’s March organizers chose the famous quote by African-American poet Audre Lorde to close their mission statement: “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences”?

Perhaps liberals and progressives will never be able to understand conservatives and vice-versa. Perhaps the differences in ideology and lifestyle expectations are just too extreme from one another. Maybe it is true that a second Civil War is upon us and that right now, we are fighting ideologically rather than physically. And maybe that is why Donald Trump has advocated that on certain issues, the policy should be left to the individual states and should not lie with the federal government.

Conservatives never approved of Barack Obama and his politics or agenda but they never protested in the street claiming that he was not their president.  They may have protested his ramming of Obamacare down the nation’s throat, despite the majority of the people not in favor of it and despite a great majority of legal scholars believing national healthcare was unconstitutional. They may have protested how he pushed for that legislation and the backdoor politics involved that so completely went against his campaign promise of complete transparency. But they never behaved as if he was not the president of all of America. They never held themselves out as being a segment of the population that was entitled to something different than the rest of the country or that their voices were more important than others.

If you live in the United States and consider yourself an American, then the election process outlined in the US Constitution dictates how our presidents are chosen. Because we are not a monolithic society, the candidate with the most electoral votes becomes the president. He (or she) is elected because he represents the prevailing view across the entire country, recognizing the fact that people in different states have different views, different concerns, and different issues that need to be addressed equally by the government that sits in DC. In a federal system as we have, the constituents (the states) are represented equally and fairly and not the individual citizens as a whole. Donald Trump was elected fairly by the people. He may not have been elected by any of the people who marched in any of the Women’s Marches that took place across the country on the day after the election, but he was elected fairly and legally.

The country spoke through Donald Trump and they were quite clear on one thing – they were rejecting the progressive agenda of the Democratic Party on the national level.  They endured eight years of an extremely progressive president, and based on what they saw him do, what they watched on TV and read in the news regarding the state of the nation and the world, what they learned the courts were doing, what they noticed in the conduct of our youth, and what they experienced on a personal and economic level, they concluded that the country was heading in the wrong direction, including the government’s ability to interpret the Constitution.

For example, on the issue of abortion, the consensus among American women is that there needs to be limits on the right to have an abortion. As it stands now, under Roe v. Wade, a woman has an unfettered right to an abortion on demand – at any time and for any reason. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that doctors, facilities and other entities cannot place any obstacles to a woman’s exercise of this right – including an 1-day waiting period, including information about what the procedure will do to the baby, and including showing the woman an ultrasound of the life inside her. The national consensus today is that there should be limits on the right and ability to obtain an abortion and that limit is the first three months. In other words, the majority of women respect the right to life of the unborn and believe that if a woman wishes to abort the fetus growing in her womb, it is not unreasonable to require her to do so within the first three months. Together with those who do not support abortion at all time, the majority of women in the United States recognize the right to grow and survive in the growing fetus and the right to life in the unborn. This is in stark contrast to the women who marched in DC (and in other cities around the country) who would treat the miracle inside her as merely a mass of cells without any inherent humanity and would deny that living miracle the most essential of all rights bestowed upon living things by our Creator – the right to life.  Hence, the majority of Americans, when faced with the realization that the next president would appoint new members to the US Supreme Court and hopeful for the opportunity to see limits placed on the right to an abortion, voted for Donald Trump.  Our national conscience was at stake in this election.

By the way, no other country, except perhaps Pakistan and China, are as progressive as the United States when it comes to abortion rights. Europe, while recognizing rights to an abortion, at least have limits on when they can be performed.

How can we continue to pray to our Creator for his continued blessings on our country, in the many things we do and the many challenges we face, when we blatantly reject his teachings through our nation’s position on abortion? As Dawn Laguens, Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood, commented: “Access to abortion is an American Value.”  How can we expect the blessings of Divine Providence when we continue to devalue the life, the most innocent of life, he has given us and stand by as women allow themselves to become pregnant through casual conduct and then terminate that life so callously?  We have to do better.

But those who marched and those who think like them do not want to do better. They don’t want to even try to do better. In fact, their position is that they have a right not to be expected to do better. They want the national position to be that women have the right to a government that rejects any sense of morality in its laws and policies.  To them, a woman’s bundle of rights includes the right to be free from morals and expectations.

And hence, we saw protesters of every type marching for their right not to be judged, not to be labeled by the traditional meaning of “woman,” for their right to unfettered a access to an abortion, for their right to have their birth control and abortions paid for by the American taxpayer, and for their right to dress like complete sluts while making sure men don’t think of them or treat them that way.

The march reminded me of the actions of a young child. If you take away her toy, at first she tries to beg for the toy back. When that doesn’t work, she pouts and cries. When that doesn’t work, she takes a hissy fit and then starts to call her Mom all kinds of names. “You’re a mean Mom!”  “I hate you!”

As I mentioned earlier, when I arrived in DC for the inauguration festivities, I was unaware of the march.  It was not until I got up and out of my hotel that I learned about it.  Although the protest was called “The Women’s March on DC,” the title was deceiving. It certainly was not a march on behalf of all women. As mentioned earlier, the Women’s March did not represent all women because they chosen not to. It represented only women who think like the organizers. If a woman does not think or act in line with their specific brand of feminism, she does not count as a woman and cannot march under the banner of “Women’s March.”

Doesn’t a woman have the right, in the face of adversity and perhaps in the face of being without a husband to support and love her and the fetus inside her, to choose life?  Why did the organizers of the March reject this viewpoint?  How COULD they reject this viewpoint?  How did it happen that Women’s Rights groups have been able to brainwash women to overlook the horrific acts which accomplish an abortion and convince her that they are part of her bundle of equality rights. Frankly, it baffles me.

As Kelsey Kurtinitis writes in her article in the Liberty Conservative: “The Women’s March claims to recognize that “defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us” — but how can they not realize that the most marginalized group in America is the unborn? No other group in the country has been targeted for mass murder; more than 54 million babies have been killed since the Roe V Wade decision in 1973.”

Jen Kuznicki, in Conservative Review, writes: “The whitewash of the mass genocide and torture of the unborn in America by pro-abort groups is a stain on this great nation equal to the acceptance and proliferation of slavery. Yet some women continue to refuse to look at what they claim is their right for what it actually means.

Diluted by the false narrative that women ought to be able to do what they wish with their own bodies, the protesters (pro-abortion rights groups, including Planned Parenthood) are blind to the fact that the body growing within their womb is a completely different body. It has different DNA, different blood, and will have a unique soul. And yet, that separate body – that new body – was partly created by her. This fact, together with the hormones surging through her body (in and of itself a miracle of nature and God), help create a bond of affection and protection.

Abortion is the most violent of rejections of both those human traits. Saline abortions burn the fetus and kill it. A saline abortion involves an injection of a very caustic salt solution into the amniotic sac which the baby swallows, causing his or her death. Labor begins 12 – 36 hours later.” If one were to watching this process take place, it would be clear that there is torture involved. On an ultrasound, the unborn child can be viewed thrashing around in immense pain as his or her skin burns. No less a means of torture is the suction aspiration abortion where the baby is pulled into the strong suction of a vacuum which rips off her or her legs and arms before the body and head are crushed. Again, on ultrasound, the baby can be seen moving desperately to push away from that vacuum. Already, the baby has a strong will to survive.

Finally, there is the D&E abortion (Dilation and Evacuation), which is performed in the second trimester of pregnancy – usually between weeks 13 and 24 but can used up until week 32. This procedure is particularly heinous because the doctor himself dilutes the woman’s cervix and then uses instruments to physically, surgically break the baby’s bones and tear off his or her arms and legs. As Dr. Martin Haskell, an abortion doctor, testified in court: “We would attack the lower part of the lower extremity first, remove, you know, possibly a foot, then the lower leg at the knee and then finally we get to the hip.”  [Sworn testimony given in US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin (Madison, WI, May 27, 1999, Case No. 98-C-0305-S].  Dr. Paul Jarrett, another abortion doctor, testified: “I used ring forceps to dismember the 13 or 14-week-size baby. Inside the remains of the rib cage I found a tiny, beating heart.”

Former abortion doctor Dr. Anthony Levatino explained (in testimony) “Once you have grasped something inside, squeeze on the clamp to set the jaws and pull hard – really hard. You feel something let go and out pops a fully formed leg about 4 to 5 inches long. Reach in again and grasp whatever you can. Set the jaw and pull really hard once again and out pops an arm. Reach in again and again with that clamp and tear out the spine, intestines, heart and lungs. The toughest part of a D&E abortion is extracting the baby’s head. The head of a baby that age is about the size of a plum and is now free floating inside the uterine cavity. You will know you have it right when you crush down on the clamp and see a pure white gelatinous material issue from the cervix. That was the baby’s brains. If you have a really bad day like I often did, a little face may come out and stare back at you.” In one medical text (Dr. Warren Hern, pg. 154), under “Abortion Practice,” where it describes the “legal procedure for conducting an abortion”, it reads: “A long curved Mayo scissors may be necessary to decapitate and dismember the fetus…”  Dr. Jarrett remembers: “I was finally able to remove the head and look squarely into the face of a human being…a human I had just killed.”

We all know that the growing fetus can feel pain but can we imagine the torture and the intense pain the baby feels, at age 20-32 weeks, while being harmed and dismembered.

The coup de grace, of course, occurs when the baby, after surviving this parade of absolute horribles, miraculously is born still alive. Very often, the doctor will “finish him or her off” by severing the spinal cord, crushing the skull, or something equally abhorrent, and then tossing the body in a garbage.

If that’s a problem (and to most it isn’t), according to the Women’s Choice activists, there is always the post-conception pill (Plan B).  Unfortunately, w kills the child at a much more acceptable phase of life, between five and nine weeks. The only thing is that the pill starves the child to death over a long period of time.

Abortion goes against all things which are natural. It’s a termination of a life, however you look at it. This insensitivity to life and this outright torture of an innocent unborn baby cannot be what is meant by a “Woman’s Right.”

Remember the mission statement proclaimed by the Women’s March: “We believe that Women’s Rights are Human Rights and Human Rights are Women’s Rights. This is the basic and original tenet for which we unite to March on Washington.”  How can a woman boast advocacy for human rights while simultaneously denying the humanity of unborn human beings?  How can a woman, of all human beings, deny this?  How can a woman march for her unfettered ability to have casual and consequence-free sex (claiming it to be a protectable right) while at the same time fighting against the inalienable right to life of the developing young woman in the womb?

As it turns out, there are more women who do not share the same position on abortion as those who protested.  And I am one of them.

Now, the abortion issue is what bothers me terribly. I understand that mistakes happen, birth control is not fool-proof, and that there can be instant regrets, but that is not what this group is about. They want full control over what happens in their womb and with their body, including the unfettered right to terminate a pregnancy at any time for any reason whatsoever (ie, the most liberal reading of Roe v. Wade). The problem is that when a woman is pregnant, there is a second body inside her, a second life, with a separate set of genes and an equal right to life. The womb she seeks so selfishly and aggressively to protect is the same womb that God and nature blessed her with in order to carry out the most important job of all – bringing forth new life and propagating the most advanced and special of all of God’s creations.

God, in His infinite wisdom, gave women this enormous responsibility. Knowing her capacity for love, patience, nurturing, wisdom, and devotion, she was the gender chosen for this incredible and essential of nature’s processes. And for all of man’s time on Earth, she has taken care that this process has continued and has moved us forward. She has conceived and born children, she has loved her children unconditionally and regardless of the situation in which they were given to her, she has nurtured and educated them, and has set them free to take their places in our society. She has helped in immeasurable ways to form the solid foundation on which our communities are built.

The women who marched on January 21 have their right to do so, but how sad it is that they ignore the fact that another human being is involved and how sad it is that they reject the awesome responsibility that God and nature has placed with them. In this, they only weaken the role a woman holds in our society, not strengthen it.

References:
* Mission Statement of the Women’s March — https://tenthamendmentkeepers.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/d348d-wmwguidingvision26definitionofprinciples.pdf

Exposing Abortion.  http://exposeabortion.com/

Kelsey Kurtinitis, “The Exclusionary Hypocrisy of the Women’s March,” The Liberty Conservative, January 17, 2017.  Referenced at:  http://www.thelibertyconservative.com/exclusionary-hypocrisy-womens-march-washington/

Jen Kuznicki, “Women’s March on Washington is Really a March Against Women, Science, and Life Itself,” January 2017.  Referenced at:

https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/01/womens-march-on-washington-is-really-a-march-against-women-science-and-life-itself