And, as I predicted, we're back.
In a new court filing, lawyers for the state and for a Hawaii imam say guidance the Trump administration issued Thursday takes too narrow a view of what family relationships qualify to exempt a foreigner from the travel ban and would deny admission to refugees who should be exempt from the ban due to their connections to a U.S. resettlement agency.
"This Court should clarify as soon as possible that the Supreme Court meant what it said, and that foreign nationals that credibly claim connections with this country cannot be denied entry under the President’s illegal Order," Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin and private counsel Neal Katyal wrote in a motion filed Thursday with U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson.
Administration officials also angered immigrant advocacy groups by declaring that refugees would not be considered to have U.S. ties simply because they had already been assigned to a U.S. refugee resettlement agency that had begun to make plans for their arrival.
"It is extremely difficult to see how a foreign national with an agreement to give a lecture within the United States may be considered to have a 'formal, documented' relationship with an entity in the United States. ... but a refugee with a guarantee of a local sponsor and a place to live cannot," the Hawaii state motion says.
Do that and you gut the order. Which is the idea.
And Judge Derrick Watson, who had previously decided that he should determine immigration and refugee policy for the country, is the perfect judge to come to with this. The Supreme Court allowed enough wiggle room for exactly this kind of thing.
The goal is to essentially prevent the order from being enforced. And, in this case, to poke so many holes in it that it can be nullified and will hardly keep anyone out.
"There are 20,000 to 25,000 refugees not yet here who are already clients of refugee resettlement agencies who have been preparing for their arrival," said Justin Cox, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center.
And then it'll be a million.
President Trump had the full authority needed for his first executive order. Going through the courts won't work. Right now everything rests on Justice Kennedy to do the right thing. Even if he somehow does, the decision will probably be watered down enough to leave wriggle room for... exactly what we're seeing now. Executive authority will be diminished and activist judges will keep seizing control of immigration policy.