February, 15 2018, 11:15am EDT
Federal Appeals Court Rules Against Trump Muslim Ban
In a 9-to-4 ruling, a federal appeals court today ruled against President Trump's third Muslim ban. The American Civil Liberties Union and partner organizations are challenging the ban.
ACLU Deputy Legal Director Cecillia Wang, who argued the case before the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Virginia on December 8, had this reaction:
RICHMOND, Va.
In a 9-to-4 ruling, a federal appeals court today ruled against President Trump's third Muslim ban. The American Civil Liberties Union and partner organizations are challenging the ban.
ACLU Deputy Legal Director Cecillia Wang, who argued the case before the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Virginia on December 8, had this reaction:
"President Trump's third illegal attempt to denigrate and discriminate against Muslims through an immigration ban has failed in court yet again. It's no surprise. The Constitution prohibits government actions hostile to a religion."
Like the previous versions, this latest ban seeks to block immigrants and temporary visitors from six Muslim-majority countries -- in this iteration, Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. It also includes North Koreans and certain Venezuelan government officials. In October, a Maryland federal district court ruled against the ban taking full effect, prompting the government's appeal.
Today's Fourth Circuit decision follows one by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which ruled against the latest ban on statutory grounds on December 22, and a decision the next day by a U.S. district court on a separate presidential order that was the latest attempt to ban refugee admissions. Under a December 4 order from the Supreme Court, however, the ban on immigrants and temporary visitors is in effect as the challenges are litigated.
Wang added, "We will continue this litigation until the Muslim ban is ended once and for all."
International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump is brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Maryland, National Immigration Law Center, and the International Refugee Assistance Project, on behalf of HIAS, IRAP, the Middle East Studies Association, Yemeni American Merchants Association, and the Arab American Association of New York.
The ruling is here: https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/fourth-circuit-court-appeals-decision
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister and leader of the Jewish supremacist Otzma Yehudit party, reposted an earlier message in which he proclaimed, "God Bless Trump."
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who was the first European leader to endorse Trump in 2016, lauded the Republican's "enormous win," which he called "a much-needed victory for the world."
Argentinian President Javier Milei—who campaigned as a libertarian populist but has governed like a neoliberal shock doctrinaire—hailed Trump's "formidable electoral victory."
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Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele—who Trump recently accused of sending gang members to the U.S. to insidiously reduce crime in his country—wished divine blessings and guidance for the president-elect.
Arab dictators—from the monarchs of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi—also congratulated Trump. Some, like Jordan's King Abdullah II, said they hoped Trump's second term would usher in an era of "regional and global peace and stability for all."
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Democrats went into the Tuesday election hoping to flip the House, which is now narrowly controlled by Republicans. There are 435 seats in the lower chamber, so the party to secure 218 of them will have the majority.
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The term has been the rallying cry of the labor movement for generations, and United Auto Workers organizer Helen Brosnan echoed Hasan's call.
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Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich did not hide his despair over Trump's victory, writing in his Substack newsletter that he was "heartbroken and scared."
But Reich urged progressives not to lose sight of "our first responsibility... to protect all those who are in harm's way," including women, immigrants, and transgender people.
How will we conduct this resistance?
By organizing our communities. By fighting through the courts. By arguing our cause through the media.
We will ask other Americans to join us—left and right, progressive and conservative, white people and people of color. It will be the largest and most powerful resistance since the American revolution.
But it will be peaceful. We will not succumb to violence, which would only give Trump and his regime an excuse to use organized violence against us.
We will keep alive the flames of freedom and the common good, and we will preserve our democracy. We will fight for the same things Americans have fought for since the founding of our nation—rights enshrined in the constitution and Bill of Rights.
The preamble to the Constitution of the United States opens with the phrase "We the people", conveying a sense of shared interest and a desire "to promote the general welfare," as the preamble goes on to say.
We the people will fight for the general welfare.
We the people will resist tyranny. We will preserve the common good. We will protect our democracy.
The National Immigration Law Center, which joined the ACLU in fighting Trump's Muslim bans and other xenophobic policies during his first term, said it "knew Trump could win and that is why we helped lead a movement wide effort to plan for this moment."
"Trump and his allies told us what he plans to do: mass deportations, ending birthright citizenship, ending the right to public education for immigrant children, internment camps, and using the military to hunt down immigrants. We should take him at his word," said Kica Matos, president of the NILC. "One thing is certain: we cannot and will not retreat. For more than 40 years, NILC has been steadfast in our fight to defend the rights of low-income immigrants and their loved ones. We successfully fought Donald Trump before, and we will do it again."
Reich reminded his readers that Americans "supported one another during the Great Depression" and other national crises.
"We were victorious over Hitler's fascism and Soviet communism," he wrote. "We survived Joe McCarthy's witch-hunts, Richard Nixon's crimes, Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam war, the horrors of 9/11, and George W. Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
"We will resist Donald Trump's tyranny," he added. "Although peaceful and non-violent, the resistance will nonetheless be committed and determined. It will encompass every community in America. It will endure as long as necessary. We will never give up on America. The resistance starts now."
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