patrick.net

"Two federal district courts and two appeals courts have blocked the main provision of the president’s executive order, which bans entry to the United States for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days. The 90-day clock was set to start ticking on the “the effective date of this order,” which the order designated as “12:01 a.m., eastern daylight time on March 16, 2017.” That implied that the ban would expire on June 14. With the ban on hold and its future in the hands of the Supreme Court, the president amended his order to clarify that the effective date of the ban is not March 16 but the date when the courts allow it to go into effect.

This is entirely within the president’s power and may have been a necessary remedy to the situation. But it also undermines the administration’s case that the ban is legal and constitutional. As Mother Jones has previously noted, the executive order’s main stated reason for an entry ban is to allow the federal government to conduct a review of worldwide visa vetting procedures. The ban, then, is in furtherance of the goal of revamping visa protocols, and once the review is complete and new review processes are put in place, the ban is, by the order’s own reasoning, no longer needed. So what is the point of a ban whose effective date is no longer tied to the review and could now continue long after the review is completed?"

I continue to suspect that some of the more religious people in the administration are trying to undermine candidate Trump's suggestion to ban immigration by advocates of a particular religion. They want to empower religion above secular law, for several reasons. One, since people disagree about religion, empowering religion can be useful to divide and rule the population. Two, importing Muslims requires mass surveillance to figure out the precise moment they become "radicalized," i.e. start doing what Islam says. Existing law bans immigration by advocates of totalitarianism and the violent overthrow of our government, both of which apply to Islam. President Trump could have ordered an actual Muslim ban and defended it on that basis and citing the ongoing carnage of lethal terror attacks including 9/11 and the Islamic State. Instead, his administration crafted a ban that would lose in court, and is losing. If they get a SCOTUS decision in their favor, it could empower religion above secular law even at the expense of American lives.

#Politics #Islam