Reversing the Immigration Ban: Federal Courts Over-stepping Their Bounds
Before even looking at this article, if you haven’t read the Constitution and the subsequent amendments, do that now. If you refuse, you have no right to call anyone uneducated.
On Thursday (Feb. 9), The Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision to halt the Trump Administration’s Immigration Ban. The extremely controversial Executive Order 13769, the official title of the ban, was argued and shot down on February 7th, with the opinion following two days later. Soon after the opinion, President Trump took to Twitter to air his grievances over the decision, for which he received abundant backlash and criticism. By many, the courts have been seen as heroes for striking down this law, but make no mistake the court got this one wrong, and have done something terrible in the process.
Before discussing how the court over stepped its power, one must understand the ruling. Before the appellate trial, the States of Washington and Minnesota challenged the Order as unconstitutional, which means that it is banned by the Constitution of the United States. In the officially published version of the decision, the court listed several aspects of the case, which will guide their decision, including whether an appeal was seen as winnable by the Trump administration, which has nothing to do with the constitutionality of the Order. They claimed in their decision that the courts have the right to look at laws passed by Congress and Executive Orders and review them on their constitutionality, which is true. This power is called Judicial Review, and was confirmed in the case Marbury v. Madison in the early 19th century. They cite this as their ability to strike down the Muslim Ban, this is an egregious and terrible thing to do. They are taking that right of judicial review and pushing it into the policy making realm. Where exactly does the Constitution say you can’t make a law that stops immigration? The answer is nowhere. Really, the only thing the Constitution says about immigration is that immigrants cannot run for President. Now, this isn’t a supportive article for the Muslim ban, I am fervently against it, but the court has gone too far once again.
The court has one job: to interpret the Constitution and to determine the validity of laws based on that. They are not to consider public opinion, or the effects of the law, or the politics involved. They have one question: “Is this law Constitutional?” The shear reality is, despite it being bad policy, it is a totally legitimate law. The courts have decided and we have allowed them to become a panel of men and women, who think they are more intelligent than everyone else and believe they have the right to pick and choose the laws they allow. The Court doesn’t get to make moral and political judgements. They don’t get to choose policy, and that is exactly what they are doing here. They are interfering with the Democratic process, and even the people, who are against the ban (like me) should see that. This is what happens when the courts get politicized. In this situation, the judges allowed their political preferences and allegiance to make their decisions for them, and that is blatantly unacceptable.
The worst part is, most of the time, we don’t even know what they are doing. They write and publish opinions, but they use such ridiculous language and legal jargon that normal people can’t understand it. They use the idea of “precedent” to extend their powers way past their Constitutional boundaries. But to most of us that doesn’t matter right? We got what we wanted, and it doesn’t matter how. We will trash the Constitution as long as our goal is met, but the ends do not justify the means. Every time we allow the court to do this, we destroy the legitimacy of the document that is our only protection against oppressive government. Now we must decide, will we allow for a group of “scholars” to dictate how we govern ourselves or will we stop this?