For criminal and civil issues in the courts, I agree. But not in judicial review. Otherwise almost no laws would be struck down. The violation of Constitutional rights is not the intent of laws, but incidental. I've heard a number of lawyers (even many that don't like Trump) stating that this was bogus. If you haven't read the opinion, do so. If that judge's parents are still alive, I can't imagine how disappointed they are on all the money they spent on law school. There is no legal standing at all written anywhere in the opinion. It even spells out that they fixed everything from the previous order that made court rule against him, but were ruling against the administration anyway because Trump said mean things on the campaign trail.TPRJones wrote:Intent is - and has always been - an important part of these legal processes. If you can use someone's words and actions to demonstrate intent, then it doesn't matter if the text of the order in question doesn't itself mention the intent as long as it still has an effect that was clearly demonstrated to be intended. And if that intended effect is unconstitutional then that order is unconstitutional.They rules on his travel ban, not on the law as written, but based on things he said on the campaign trail? Seriously? If that is to be accepted as the basis of law, courts will be interpreting laws in a whole new way.
This is not new, this is how our legal system has always worked.
TPRJones wrote:It does not. There are certain reasons that he does not have the authority to suspend immigration for, and they are related to the constitutional amendments regarding protected classes. The President can't make an order banning immigration based on gender, race, religion, etc. Such an act is unconstitutional.Like him or not (I don't) the law gives the President the authority to suspend immigration for any reason.
If an order to ban from certain countries coincidentally involves a high proportion of one of these protected classes that is fine. UNLESS there is evidence that the intent was to ban the protected class and that the order was written about countries solely in order to obfuscate that intent. If that can be shown then the order remains unconstitutional.
There was even more authority granted the executive office with either the Patriot Act or one of its off-shoots.The 1952 law reads: “Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”
And the US has had a strange history of deciding where and to whom Constitutional protections apply to non-citizens outside the US. There was a Mexican alien that took his conviction to court because the Mexican and US task force searched his home in Mexico without a warrant. The court found against him. His protection from illegal search and seizure did not extend to his home in Mexico.
But here's the reason I recognize this as judicial activism. They didn't strike down the 1952 law that allows the ban as unconstitutional for the reasons you stated. They struck down the ban instead. Did his ban fall outside the authority of the 1952 law? If not then the legal problem isn't with this ban, it's with the 1952 law. I'm not sure if the law has been challenged and upheld before. Couldn't find any material on that.