The Supreme Court's Travel Ban Off-Ramp
“[T]he powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial,” White House aide Stephen Miller assured the nation on February 12, “and will not be questioned.”
Miller has proved a singularly bad prophet. Donald Trump’s asserted powers—over immigration, over federal funding for “sanctuary cities,” and over the U.S. military—are receiving a very skeptical look from the federal judiciary. In the latest iteration of the “travel ban” case, that the third version of the ban violates the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Supreme Court had earlier signaled its unease with court-ordered injunctions against the ban; whether in response or not, the court of appeals has now offered the court a way to strike down the ban without imposing any real limit on federal power over immigration—while making clear power is not nearly as broad as Trump and Miller think it is.
