SCOTUSblog by Amy Howe 6/20/2017
Calling the March 6 executive order signed by President Donald Trump, which put a temporary hold on visas for travelers from six Muslim-majority countries, “grossly unlawful,” the state of Hawaii today urged the Supreme Court to sit out the litigation over the legality of the order, popularly known as the “travel ban.” Instead, the state told the justices, they should allow two lower-court orders putting the order on hold to remain in place. After all, the state suggested, even the federal government – which is defending the order in court — “has revealed by word and deed that even it believes” that the travel ban is no longer necessary.
The Trump administration has asked the justices to reinstate the travel ban, which two separate federal appeals courts had blocked, and review the dispute over the ban on the merits. The government’s original request for the Supreme Court to weigh in came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit had blocked the government from implementing the ban, but before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit had ruled in Hawaii’s challenge to the ban. The justices ordered the latest round of briefing – of which today’s filing was a part – after the 9th Circuit ruled for Hawaii on June 12.
The brief that Hawaii filed today reiterated many of the points that the state made in its earlier briefing. The state complained, for example, that the federal government had doubled “down on a breathtaking vision of unreviewable” power for the executive branch. But, the state maintained, federal immigration laws do not give president “an absolute right to control immigration.” Recounting the history of early U.S. colonists, the state stressed that the Founding Fathers “were thus familiar both with the violent threat posed by religious zealots and with the threat to our liberties posed by governments acting in the name of the United States. Our Constitution,” the state emphasized, “is designed to guard against them both.”
More:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/06/hawaii-supreme-court-no-need-review-travel-ban/
