Trump Uses the Vast Authority Granted to Him by the Supreme Court to Once Again Issue a Travel Ban and Abuse His Immigration Powers
Donald Trump has a genius for finding weaknesses in the American system. One of them is the way Congress has been eager to grant emergency powers to the president, particularly on immigration. Trump then takes those powers and stretches them to their breaking point, as in his most recent sweeping ban on immigrants.
When he issued a travel ban on citizens of Muslim-majority countries early in his first term, he did so by invoking Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows him to block any foreigner if he deems that their entry would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” …
Finally, last week, he announced that he would block foreign students from receiving student visas to attend Harvard University and implement a travel ban on 12 countries, as well as restrictions on seven others. The travel ban took effect on Monday, just after midnight, and the legal framework for both orders was built on Section 212(f). …
Before Trump, both Democratic and Republican presidents used the 212(f) authority sparingly. It was typically employed in order to enforce United Nations sanctions or target individuals or groups associated with terrorism, human rights violations, drug trafficking, or specific international crises.…
The Supreme Court’s 2018 decision narrowly upholding Trump’s first travel ban made [the] shift clear. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that Section 212(f) “exudes deference to the President in every clause.” For that reason, the court refused to question the superficial national security rationale Trump provided for the travel ban.
When Justice Roberts writes about “exuding deference to the president,” I have to wonder whether that’s the law, or just him. The Roberts Court has allowed Trump to take a narrowly tailored emergency provision and turn it into an arbitrary and unlimited power that can be used to enact his prejudices.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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