Tag: Trump Muslim ban

Trump travel ban targeting Muslims will not make America safer

The following article by Rebecca Jayne Wolfe, Fellow, Program for Refugees, Forced Migration and Humanitarian Action, Yale University, was posted on the Conversation website June 25, 2018:

Credit: AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert

The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld the Trump administration’s policy barring people from several predominantly Muslim nations from entering the U.S., ruling that the travel ban was an appropriate use of executive power aimed at strengthening national security.

In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that the policy – which targets travelers from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia – was discriminatory because it brands Muslims as potential terrorists. Continue reading “Trump travel ban targeting Muslims will not make America safer”

Mitch McConnell’s Official Twitter Account Brazenly Celebrates His Supreme Court Heist After Judges Side with Trump

The following article by Elizabeth Preza was posted on the AlterNet.org website June 26, 2018:

A reminder that elections have consequences.

It’s no secret Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is obsessed with judges. He’s called the decision not to fill a Supreme Court vacancy under former President Barack Obama “the most consequential decision I’ve ever made in my entire public career” and declared the judiciary his “top priority” in the Senate. And on Tuesday, following a series of Supreme Court rulings that sided with the Trump administration, he straight-up gloated about his judicial heist.

To review: in March 2016, McConnell cited “principle” as the motivating factor in his refusal to take action on Merrick Garland, whom Obama had nominated to the Supreme Court after the death of Antonin Scalia. The decision was so integral in the appointment of Neil Gorsuch that the president thanked McConnell during Gorsuch’s swearing-in ceremony for “all he did to make this achievement possible” Continue reading “Mitch McConnell’s Official Twitter Account Brazenly Celebrates His Supreme Court Heist After Judges Side with Trump”

Supreme Court denunciation of ruling upholding WWII internment bittersweet, Japanese Americans say

The following article by Teresa Watanabe was posted on the Los Angeles Times website June 26, 2018:

Fred Korematsu, whose legal challenge of the WWII internment orders was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1944, at his family nursery (third from left). Credit: POV: Of Civil Wrongs and Rights

For decades, Karen Korematsu has hoped and prayed that someday the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn its infamous 1944 decision upholding the mass incarceration of her father, Fred, and 120,000 others of Japanese descent during World War II.

But when the high court condemned that decision Tuesday, Korematsu was not overjoyed. She was disheartened.

“My heart sank,” she said. “I feel the court all over again dishonored my father and what he stood for. To me what the Supreme Court did was substitute one injustice for another.”

That’s because the court rejected the prior Korematsu ruling in a decision that upheld the Trump administration’s ban on visitors from five Muslim-majority nations — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen — as well as North Korea and some government officials from Venezuela. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor cited “stark parallels” between the travel ban decision and the Korematsu ruling. That didn’t sit well with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Continue reading “Supreme Court denunciation of ruling upholding WWII internment bittersweet, Japanese Americans say”

‘What’s next?’ Muslims grapple with Supreme Court ruling that they believe redefines their place in America

The following article by Abigail Hauslohner was posted on the Washington Post website June 26, 2018:

Members of the New York Immigration Coalition hold a news conference on June 26, 2018, to talk about the US Supreme Court decision upholding President Trump’s ban on citizens of several majority-Muslim countries. Credit: Don Emmert, AFP/Getty Images

Ramy Almansoob’s children have been asking every day for weeks: “Do we have a decision yet? Do we have a decision yet? Do we have a decision yet?”

The girls, ages 6, 9 and 13, still live in the war-torn capital of Yemen, where the seeming randomness of airstrikes has taught them to brace for a painful end. Last year, they mourned their grandmother, killed by a stray bullet through the head as she sat inside her home.

The girls knew that the U.S. Supreme Court would soon decide whether President Trump’s ban on entry into the United States by citizens of seven countries, five of them majority-Muslim, including Yemen, would stand. They knew that the ruling would determine whether they and their mother — whose visas were granted on the eve of the ban and then revoked — could finally join their father, a U.S. citizen, in America. Continue reading “‘What’s next?’ Muslims grapple with Supreme Court ruling that they believe redefines their place in America”

Read: Sonia Sotomayor condemns Trump’s “unrelenting attack on the Muslim religion and its follow­ers”

The following article by Dylan Matthews was posted on the Vox.com website June 26, 2018:

Sotomayor read Trump’s tweets too and wants to know why the rest of the Supreme Court didn’t.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor Credit: Leigh Vogel, Getty Images

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday, June 26, 5-4, that the Trump administration’s travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries is constitutional, largely because the administration picked the listed countries using criteria that were, on their face, race- and religion-neutral. Those criteria just happened to result in a policy banning entry from a number of Muslim countries (plus North Korea and Venezuela) and to come from a president who had repeatedly promised to bar Muslims from entering the United States.

The Court’s four liberals dissented. Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissent, which Justice Elena Kagan joined, is cautiously written, arguing that the case should be sent back to district court based on evidence that the policy is not being applied in a fair way. Continue reading “Read: Sonia Sotomayor condemns Trump’s “unrelenting attack on the Muslim religion and its follow­ers””

Second judge rules against latest entry ban, saying Trump’s own words show it was aimed at Muslims

The following article by Matt Zapotosky was posted on the Washington Post website October 18, 2017:

A judge on Oct. 17 blocked President Trump’s latest bid to impose restrictions on citizens from several countries from entering the United States. (Reuters)

A federal judge in Maryland early Wednesday issued a second halt on the latest version of President Trump’s entry ban, asserting that the president’s own comments on the campaign trail and on Twitter convinced him that the directive was akin to an unconstitutional ban on Muslims.

U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang issued a somewhat-less-complete halt on the ban than his counterpart in Hawaii did a day earlier. Chuang blocked the administration only from enforcing the directive on those with a “bona fide” relationship with a person or entity in the United States, such as family members or some type of professional or other engagement in the United States. Continue reading “Second judge rules against latest entry ban, saying Trump’s own words show it was aimed at Muslims”

Court says essentially that Trump is not to be believed. Will Supreme Court conclude the same?

The following article by Robert Barnes was posted May 28, 2017 on the Washignton Post website:

Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. (Steve Helber/AP)

A substantial majority of the judges who sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond delivered a rather remarkable judgment last week: The president of the United States is not to be believed.

Will the Supreme Court conclude the same thing? And by “Supreme Court,” we mean “Justice Anthony M. Kennedy,” whose name was invoked 23 times in the 205 pages of majority opinions, concurrences and dissents in the appeals court’s 10-to-3 rejection of President Trump’s revised travel ban. Continue reading “Court says essentially that Trump is not to be believed. Will Supreme Court conclude the same?”

The Trump Administration’s Dangerous Attempt to Redefine Religious Liberty

The following article by Claire Markham was posted on the Center for American Progress website February 7, 2017:

AP/Craig Ruttle)
Family members who have just arrived from Syria embrace and are greeted by family who live in the United States upon their arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, February 6, 2017.

Religious liberty is a fundamental American value. Protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, free exercise of religion and freedom from government-endorsed religion are cherished rights that belong to all people. The importance of religious liberty in American history and as a core tenant of American democracy is precisely why it must be safeguarded from those who seek to manipulate it for their own political ends.

Although the Trump administration has only been in power for a few weeks, its message on religious freedom is clear: It wants to redefine religious liberty to only protect people who share its vision of faith. This comes at a steep cost to the fundamental American value of religious freedom for all. It also dangerously marginalizes people of faith who do not share the Trump administration’s views, many of whom are already vulnerable to rising incidents of anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim bigotry. In recent days, the administration has taken a number of actions that threaten to undermine true religious freedom. Continue reading “The Trump Administration’s Dangerous Attempt to Redefine Religious Liberty”

President Trump’s immigration executive order, by the (non-alternative) facts.

The following is from a Washington Post Fact Checker email from Michelle Ye Hee Lee dated February 3, 2017:

President Trump’s immigration executive order, by the (non-alternative) facts.

A week ago today, President Trump signed an immigration executive order heard around the world. Amid the confusion over the order’s application and legality were many dubious facts, so we set the record straight on several aspects of the order. Continue reading “President Trump’s immigration executive order, by the (non-alternative) facts.”