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Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Trump Wins While Appeals Continue

The big breaking news is at The Hill: Supreme Court allows Trump to enforce 'Remain in Mexico' policy. Here's the key:

The Supreme Court announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration may enforce a policy that requires asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico. 
The justices will allow the “Remain in Mexico” policy to continue while the administration appeals a lower court ruling which deemed the program illegal and ordered a suspension that was scheduled to take effect tomorrow. 
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the only justice to publicly dissent from the decision to allow the policy to continue. 
... 
A federal district court in California last April ruled that the policy violates U.S. immigration law and contravenes international human rights norms. The court ordered the administration to stop the practice along the entire U.S. border. 
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld the lower court’s legal ruling, but the appellate court narrowed the injunction to apply to California and Arizona, the two border states under its jurisdiction.  
The injunction, that was scheduled to take effect tomorrow, would have affected those two states, but would not have applied to New Mexico or Texas.

Interestingly, I read this within a minute or two of making this comment on another thread:

The state of the judicial branch is a huge problem for our constitutional order that has finally reached critical mass--a real threat to our body politic. 
Read Article III of the Constitution, which establishes the Judicial Branch--this is basically it: 
"The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." 
The only court established by the ratification of the Constitution was the SCOTUS. I suspect the system of "inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish" has grown far beyond what the Founders ever imagined. It's an unwieldy structure in which justice is routinely delayed and denied by expense and overload. And there is no real way to impose discipline on the inferior courts in a truly effective way--as we're seeing now.

With this action, the SCOTUS is taking the one step it can take, but the situation is a bit like the coronavirus. The SCOTUS is the ICU for the Constitution, and the actions of liberal judges are swamping and overloading the SCOTUS with acts that require remedial action that shouldn't be occupying their time and keeping them from attending to legitimate matters.

12 comments:

  1. Maybe one day we will have a Congress that will do its job.

    Rob S

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  2. It would seem to me the Supreme Court is well within its rights to prescribe and establish precedent on what sorts of injunctive relief are legitimate. Why doesn't it do this? I suppose they would rather leave in place a system that allows for prudent JUDGEMENT to implement injunctions where appropriate, but clearly this cohort of judges are not capable of restraint. I guess they can just keep swatting these down with the side benefit of ticking off Sotomayor. But allowing this charade to continue will only erode the perceived legitimacy of the courts, their only real source of power. And Chief Justice Roberts should care about that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, and they probably will soon. My understanding is that they're waiting for one of these cases to reach them on the merits and will then address the issue. In the meantime they've starting swatting.

      Delete
  3. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/disorder-in-the-courts-federal-judge-blasts-justice-roberts

    Then there is this idiocy.
    Tom S.

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  4. I know that this is about a Clinton judge, but Obama stacked a lot of bad judges during his eight years.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, but this goes back to Robert's snit about there are no 'Obama or Trump' judges. Classic chickens seeking a familiar roost.
      Tom S.

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    2. I wonder how Roberts feels about that now--after Sotomayor and now this guy blasting him publicly.

      Delete
    3. Mark, can you steer me to the quote, in which Sotomayor blasted him publicly?

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    4. Strictly speaking she didn't single out Roberts--she blasted ALL the conservative justices in a 5-4 decision. Just run this search and take your pick:

      "sotomayor blasts conservative justices"

      Here's one that gives some quotes:

      https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/02/23/sotomayor-blasts-conservative-justices-for-bias-toward-trump-admin-when-vote-doesnt-go-her-way-890311

      Delete
    5. Thanx for that.
      Just more evidence, that the Left has gone berserk, and that liberals need to be schooled (e.g. by Dersh?), on how grave a threat these Lefties are.

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    6. Sotomayor's statement should not be a surprise. She publicly stated that her gender and skin color would affect her decisions. What she forgot to add was her politics.

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  5. It's perhaps significant that in the order today from the SCOTUS, overriding the 9th circuit stay, the vote was 8-1 against Sotomayor. That means to me that sooner or later the SCOTUS will address directly the whole business of nationwide stays or injunctions being issued by district courts. Eight of the nine justices apparently see that this is a real problem.

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