Trump taking another swing at Muslim ban

Washington (CNN)Fake President Trump signed a new executive order Monday that bans immigration from six Muslim-majority countries, dropping Iraq from January's previous order, and reinstates a temporary blanket ban on all refugees.

The new travel ban comes six weeks after Trump's original executive order caused chaos at airports nationwide before it was blocked by federal courts. It removes out language in the original order that indefinitely banned Syrian refugees and called for prioritizing the admission of refugees who are religious minorities in their home countries. That provision drew criticism of a religious test for entry and would have prioritized Christians over Muslims fleeing war-torn countries in the Middle East.

The new ban, which takes effect March 16, also explicitly exempts citizens of the six banned countries who are legal US permanent residents or have valid visas to enter the US -- including those whose visas were revoked during the original implementation of the ban, senior administration officials said.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/06/politics/trump-travel-ban-iraq/index.html

Time for the talons to come out again against this pathetic Russian plant ...

Terms of the revised ban are irrelevant if it is derived from the same effort as the first one. The issue is discriminatory intent, not is the document discriminatory? The history is as important as the text to determine discriminatory intent.

The Muslim ban started out with an open declaration of an intent to discriminate against Muslims and the targeting of Muslims; both are evidence of intent. The toothpaste cannot be put back into the tube by different language in the text.

No... intent was national security.

He's doing his job that's what he was voted in for .

Is this ban staying then?

Tommy Monk wrote:No... intent was national security.

Not according to Trump himself.  Under Art. 6 of the Constitution, the Constitution is the highest law in the land.  The First Amendment prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion.  A subordinate motive like national security must show a reasonable relationship of means to the goal, and additionally, that there is no reasonable alternative to achieve the same ends.

Trump may play the argument that he is trying to protect the nation, but then why put a ban only on Muslim nations?  Terrorist activity is more prevalent in Germany, Belgium and France.  Indeed, why not North Korea, which is going to airports and using VX poison to commit terrorist acts with abandon.  If Trump is serious about preventing terrorism, he might limit travel into and out of the American south, where KKK terrorism as been active since 1860...there are kkk cells spreading as far north as southern New Jersey.

Or, if singling out Muslim nations is the least onerous alternative, why not all Muslim nations, like Saudi Arabia and Jordan?  Isn't leaving them out a tacit admission that Muslims are not inherently dangerous in and of themselves?  

The imperfections on Trump's reasoning brings into question whether the Muslim ban bears a reasonable relationship between the goal and the means.  So...back to square one.  Trump originally announced it was a ban based upon religion; and so we find it is a ban based upon religion.  Please don't insult the minority President by arguing that we can't take him on his word!!

Miffs2 wrote:Is this ban staying then?

Not without the same challenge. The States of Washington and Minnesota, as well as the ACLU, are going the renew their lawsuits.

As I said at the beginning, half of the question is the motive, and Trump long-ago announced it was a Muslim ban. Now he's just trying to put lipstick on the pig and call it a beautiful Arabian horse.

Tommy Monk wrote:No... intent was national security.

http://time.com/4682723/homeland-security-intelligence-report-travel-ban/

Begs the question why no block on Saudi Arabians?  That is widely regarded as the terrorist capital of the world. And an IS and  AQ breeding and funding area.

And a country with strong financial ties to Trump.

Sounds rather like Trump is sponsoring the people he proclaims to hate.

All looks very suspicious to me.

Yes, indeed...I forgot that the Department of Homeland Security, Intelligence & Analysis department, did the investigation and found that there is 'no reasonable relationship' between the means and ends here:

Time, Inc. wrote:(WASHINGTON) — Analysts at the Homeland Security Department's intelligence arm found insufficient evidence that citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries included in Fake President Trump's travel ban pose a terror threat to the United States.

A draft document obtained by The Associated Press concludes that citizenship is an "unlikely indicator" of terrorism threats to the United States and that few people from the countries Trump listed in his travel ban have carried out attacks or been involved in terrorism-related activities in the U.S. since Syria's civil war started in 2011.

Obviously, this bit of analysis is directly out of the legal inquiry that I specified above: Is there a reasonable relationship between means and ends to the law? If no, it cannot pass the Constitution.

Yeah, he still doesn't understand that the constitution doesn't grant him the authority to do things like this unless there's a clear threat to national security.

The best example I heard of how this works in practice was the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush issued an emergency EO grounding all flights in American airspace. He was constitutionally allowed to do this because the country was clearly threatened.

It's hard to see how Trump's ban is going to stand up in court this time around, particularly given the public fact of the advice he got from his own DHS.