Trump versus the Judge

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
by John Schlafly and Andy Schlafly

Donald Trump won the presidency fair and square, but there’s a well-funded movement to resist his victory and defy the new president’s authority over the executive branch of our government. Now one federal judge, who sits nearly 3,000 miles away in the “other” Washington, has raised the stakes by ordering federal bureaucrats to disobey a lawful order by President Trump.

Judge James L. Robart’s reckless ruling shocked legal scholars because in so many previous decisions, courts have recognized the president’s power to keep aliens out of the United States. If taken literally, the judge’s ruling gives everyone in the world the right to sue in our courts for the right to enter and remain in our country.

“Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril,” Trump tweeted from Mar-a-Lago. “If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”

A few minutes later, he tweeted again: “I have instructed Homeland Security to check people coming into our country VERY CAREFULLY. The courts are making the job very difficult!”

It should be obvious that we need to pause the admission of refugees and others from known terror havens, and Donald Trump was elected on a promise to institute a temporary ban followed by “extreme vetting” of future visitors. The America people are entitled to get what we voted for.

Orlando, San Bernardino, and Chattanooga are just a few of our cities scarred by atrocities committed by refugees or aliens from known hotbeds of terrorism, or by their spouses or children who grew up among us. The bombers of the Boston Marathon were sons of refugees, and the recent attack at Ohio State University was committed by an 18-year-old refugee from Somalia.

“What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions, can come into U.S.?” read another Trump tweet. “When a country is no longer able to say who can, and who cannot, come in & out, especially for reasons of safety & security - big trouble!”

The president’s commonsense views, so recently endorsed by the American people, received no respect from the federal judge in Seattle. Although nominally appointed by President George W. Bush in 2004, Judge Robart was actually selected for his job by Washington’s two Democratic U.S. Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.

In the most offensive part of his ruling, the judge accepted the crazy argument that Washington State has the right to protect its own “residents” (not citizens) against the legitimate enforcement of federal law. The Supreme Court rejected that idea in the 1960s, when South Carolina tried to escape the federal Voting Rights Act, and it should do so again in this case.

The Supreme Court has also ruled that aliens outside the United States have no right to sue to enter our country. The President can even revoke their visas if he believes it is in the national interest to do so. And if the aliens themselves have no right to sue, no one else has the right to sue on their behalf.

The famous Quinnipiac poll recently sampled 899 registered voters, finding that by a margin of 48 percent to 42 percent, voters support “suspending immigration from terror prone regions, even if it means turning away refugees.” By a margin of 53 percent to 41 percent, voters also said they would support requiring immigrants from Muslim-majority nations to register with American officials.

Rasmussen reported similar results from its poll of 1,000 likely voters, with 57 percent supporting a temporary halt on refugees from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian and Yemen while only 33 percent were opposed. The president’s proposal was supported by 82 percent of Republicans, 59 percent of independents and 34 percent of Democrats.

Newsweek magazine sent a reporter to Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, which flipped from supporting Obama by 5 points in 2012 to a 20-point victory for Trump in 2016. Voters there overwhelmingly support the President’s policy, with one former Bernie Sanders supporter saying of Trump: “I don’t think he’s picked out a religion, he’s picked out countries that need more vetting,”

While the President’s executive order works its way through the courts, the Syrian-born mayor of Prospect Park, New Jersey, signed his own executive order that prohibits the use of “any Borough funds or resources to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration law.” The defiant refugee from Aleppo proves the truth of Ann Coulter’s recent comment: “We let in one ethnic group out of compassion, then they form an ethnic power bloc to demand that all their fellow countrymen be let in, too.”

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously on September 6.

These columns are also posted on pseagles.com.