“The lower courts had misapplied the First Amendment and interfered with the president’s constitutional executive power.” — American Civil Rights Union Chairman Susan A. Carleson
ALEXANDRIA, VA (June 27, 2017) — The U.S. Supreme Court’s stay of the lower courts’ injunctions and agreement to hear the case involving President Trump’s so-called “travel ban” from six terror-prone countries, is “a big win for the doctrine of separation of powers,” said Susan A. Carleson, ACRU chairman.
Two federal district judges — one in Hawaii and another in Maryland — had issued injunctions to block President Trump’s order, issued on January 27. They ruled that Mr. Trump’s campaign rhetoric indicated that his order was an unlawful application of religious discrimination toward Muslims, who are in the majority of the six nations listed in the travel ban. Today’s order lifted some components of the injunctions but left others intact.
The ACRU filed two briefs — one at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the other at the Ninth Circuit — supporting the Trump Administration in the case. The ACRU plans to file a brief in July at the Supreme Court, which is expected to hear arguments in the fall.
In a brief filed in State of Hawaii v. Donald Trump at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the ACRU argued that, “The district court applied the wrong standard by looking to whether the Executive Order had a secular purpose or whether it endorsed a particular religious message. The Supreme Court in 2014 jettisoned that line of cases and abandoned such lines of inquiry.”
“The lower courts had misapplied the First Amendment and interfered with the president’s executive power,” Carleson said. “This is a big win for the doctrine of separation of powers and also for protecting our nation from those who seek to do us harm.”
READ THE AMICUS BRIEF HERE.
For interviews with the author of the briefs, ACRU General Counsel Ken Klukowski, please contact Robert Knight at Robert.Knight@theacru.org.