trump was just about to see his second order to ban Muslims go into effect when a Hawaii judge said no way. Trump then went ballistic at a Miami rally and at the same time claimed that the country is much stronger now than when he took office.
The federal judge who caused the presidential freakout is an Obama appointee named Derrick Watson. The most remarkable aspect of his firm opinion, which applies nationwide, was that he used the president's own Words to substantiate the fact that the order was intentionally designed to hurt certain persons.
Trump's police state proclivities
Watson's opinion will certainly be appealed but it will end up in the US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. That is the same court that turned down Trump's first attempt. That attempt led to national chaos at airports and widespread fear that a police state was about to materialize. In fact, the president did seek to turn local police forces into immigration agents despite the fact that this was seen as something that could raise crime by silencing potential witnesses.
Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Latest Travel Ban Nationwide https://t.co/Q6EpRXhFIk
— Stephen C. Rose (@stephencrose) March 16, 2017
Irreparable harm
In Honolulu Judge Watson, agreed that all Hawaii and the plaintiff, Ismail Elshikh, imam of a Muslim Association, could suffer irreparable harm if Trump's order was followed.
The current order has the same problem as the first one. It singles out Muslims and makes them into a pariah group by means of implicit prejudice. The surprising thing about the original act of the of the three-judge appeals panel is that it was unanimous. This makes it virtually certain that an appeal of Watson's opinion will fail as only two votes are needed to stop it.
SCOTUS in the shadows
We are clearly SCOTUS-bound. This creates an interesting problem for the president. The present 4-4 split of the high court makes it likely that Trump's efforts will fail. But it is also likely that this will intensify efforts to fill out the court with Trump's nominee Judge Gorsuch.
Should it come down to that confirmation, we can be certain that the Democrats, smarting from the humiliation of Judge Garland's rejection, will exert every effort to block a confirmation. We are in a war. The people have lost already. But the stakes are high enough that much more damage could result.
