The Supreme Court upheld Trump’s travel ban from mostly Muslim countries. It was a 5-4 decision with all of the conservatives siding with Trump. John Roberts wrote that the presidency has vast powers to control immigration, and that a president’s words on the subject could not be used to affect a legal decision that would bind future presidents, meaning Trump’s anti-Muslim statements could not invalidate the travel ban.
On page 29 of the opinion Roberts quotes several presidents who made statements about religious tolerance, especially toward Muslims. Roberts then writes: “Yet in cannot be denied that the Federal Government and the Presidents who have carried its laws into effect–from the Nation’s earliest days–performed unevenly in living up to those inspiring words.”
Justice Kennedy announced his retirement on Wednesday. Within hours people from the left and the right were predicting that the new court will overturn Roe v. Wade.
Child-Separation
As of this week the Department of Health and Human Services is holding 2,047 separated children, six fewer than last week.
The Justice System wheeled into action on Tuesday: “A federal judge in California issued a nationwide injunction late Tuesday temporarily stopping the Trump administration from separating children from their parents at the border and ordered that all families already separated be reunited within 30 days.”
Customs and Border Protection announced that they would end zero-tolerance policy for adults with children, meaning they will be released pending their hearing. Officials say this is only temporary.
Here is Vox’s Dara Lind on how the travel ban became normalized. The first two versions of the ban were struck down in lower courts, and only the third version was upheld: “The current version is as close to court-proof as a policy signed by the man who once called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” could possibly get. While that means it’s likely to stay in place, it also represents a victory for the ban’s opponents. The courts (perhaps inspired by the resistance in the streets) forced the administration to keep its ambitions within the scope of what was legally permissible, and the administration complied. The system worked.”
Children as young as three years old are having to go without their parents into their own asylum/deportation hearings.
Sessions is drafting a regulation that will make it much harder to request asylum.
In what may a sign of things to come, Harley-Davidson says it is moving some jobs and production oversees to avoid Trump’s tariffs.
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Trump’s Job Approval: 41.80%