US Court slams Trump travel ban, says unlawful discrimination against Muslims

Friday, February 16, 2018

A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s travel ban targeting people from six Muslim-majority countries violates the US Constitution by discriminating on the basis of religion.

It is another legal setback for the policy.

The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals, on a 9-4 vote, became the second federal appeals court to rule against the ban.

After finding the Republican president’s own words demonstrated that bias against Muslims was the basis of the policy.

The US Supreme Court has allowed the ban and put in place by Trump by presidential proclamation in September to go into effect.

However, the litigation challenging it continues.

The earlier decision by the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals was taken further by the 4^th Circuit ruling that the ban violated federal immigration law but did not address whether it also violated the Constitution.

In deciding the legality of the ban in the coming months the Supreme Court already has said it will consider both issues.

In April the justices will hear arguments over the ban and issue a ruling by the end of June.

4th Circuit Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote in the ruling that the examining official statements from President Trump and other executive branch officials, along with the proclamation itself concluded that the proclamation was unconstitutional and tainted with animus toward Islam.

Trump promised a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States and the court also took note of the fact that Trump in November shared on Twitter anti-Muslim videos posted by a far-right British political figure.

After taking the office in January 2017, the third version of the ban blocked entry into the United States of most people from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.

The  policy was needed to protect the United States from terrorism by Islamic terrorists.
US Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec mentioned that the 4th Circuit ruling does not alter the status quo, and they were looking forward to ultimate resolution of these issues by the Supreme Court.
 

Kupec said that nothing was more important to the President and the Attorney General (Jeff Sessions) than the safety and security of all Americans and the President’s lawful order remains critical to accomplishing that goal.

 
Judge Paul Niemeyer stated  the courts should be deferential to the president on national security matters and criticized the court’s majority.

He further stated that  his colleagues applied a novel legal rule  providing for the use of campaign-trail statements to recast later official acts of the president.

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