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Sunday, February 5, 2017

"Nation's Elected Representative"

The New York Times reports:
A federal appeals court early Sunday rejected a request by the Justice Department to immediately restore President Trump’s targeted travel ban, deepening a legal showdown over his authority to tighten the nation’s borders in the name of protecting Americans from terrorism.
In the legal back and forth over the travel ban, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco said a reply from the Trump administration was now due on Monday.
The ruling meant that travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — as well as vetted refugees from all nations could, for now, continue to enter the country. Those foreigners had been barred by an executive order signed by the president on Jan. 27.
After a Federal District Court in Seattle blocked Mr. Trump’s order nationwide on Friday, the Justice Department appealed the ruling late Saturday, saying that the president had the constitutional authority to order the ban and that the court ruling “second-guesses the president’s national security judgment.”
The language of the document is odd:
The injunction contravenes the constitutional separation of powers; harms the public by thwarting enforcement of an Executive Order issued by the nation’s elected representative responsible for immigration matters and foreign affairs; and second-guesses the President’s national security judgment about the quantum of risk posed by the admission of certain classes of aliens and the best means of minimizing that risk.
Article I, section 8, clause 4 of the Constitution gives Congress the " power to establish an uniform rule of naturalization,"