GUWonder

This interim situation created by the Court was an interesting way to "split the difference", but I think that eventually we are looking at a 4-4 (not a mistake), 5-4 or 6-3 split after it deals with EO 2.0 next term. And I'm anything but certain that a future 5-4 or 6-3 split necessarily goes against EO 2.0 when this is all said and done.

SCOTUS is generally heavily slanted toward siding with the Executive Branch (and with Corporate America, if/when applicable); so I think there should still be apprehension about the outcome working out in favor of those against the poorly-veiled attempt at religious discrimination by the Admin. The Justices have to balance their inclination to back the Exec on foreign policy/national security matters and not ending up in history as the Justices that backed bigotry.

catocony

Even Alito and Thomas - and now Gorsuch - don't want to risk being in the majority in the next Dred Scott case. That's why Roberts seems to ride the fence on a lot of things. He might be against something like Obergefell on the general principle of 'we shouldn't legislate from the bench" However, if it's 4-4, he's not going to be Roger Taney.

lonelycrowd

Yes, and not just tourists. Even with more than 24 hours to process the decision now, it still seems super bizarre that the most liberal justices voted to set up this situation for those in the one-shot diversity category with the 9/30 deadline, given State's previous indication per Cable 23338 as reported by Reuters that diversity applicants are unlikely to be judged to have significant ties.

I understand (as usual, via second-hand translations of a Telegram group for visa applicants) that there has been some correspondence to diversity visa applicants in administrative processing out of Yerevan today, indicating that the actual work of conducting AP will continue (so much for the institutional resources argument) while being very vague about whether visas will be issued once AP is complete.

I still can't explain for the life of me why justices like Sotomayor thought this would be a productive exercise for the judicial system and bureaucracy to work through while they head off to the beach....

catocony

It's a test solultion. If they had kicked the ban completely, the Administration would just gin up EO 3.0, 4.0, etc and keep trying to ram it through the courts. This way, a small part of the ban can take place for a while, but they will sort through it all in the fall. By then, if the Administration was sincere that it is just temporary, there should be some results that the Administration will have to show the courts. If, as I suspect, nothing much is done, or it's just BS, then the Supreme Court will most likely strike the whole thing down.

The Court is giving the Administration a chance to prove itself. It's up to Team Trump to actually do it. My money is on the Administration failing that task miserably.

GUWonder

SCOTUS is going to want to be very careful in how it strikes this down, even in the situation of the Administration miserably failing a task of proving itself. These are Justices heavily inclined to back (or at least give lots of breathing room to) the Executive and Business, absent rather extreme and extraordinary circumstances (i.e., having a personality that so extremely stirs the pot and tries to generate opposition of sorts, even if such stirring of the point undermines the possibility of delivering upon the claimed objective).

If the POTUS hadn't been so blatantly playing up the anti-Muslim angle and saying he wants to call it what it is -- a "Muslim ban"/"Muslim travel ban" -- then I would have bet on the Court siding almost completely with the Executive on border control matters.

leungy18

That, and the chaos that was EO 1.0. It was secretive -- no one in Congress even knew about it. People were stuck in transit. Then came the confusion at airports where green card holders were detained for hours without any legal aid at all, where 100k+ visas were revoked. It was struck down very quickly, and for very good reason.

The initial EO 1.0 frenzy leaves a bad taste -- that perhaps the Trump admin has ulterior motives and/or is just plain incompetent. The fact that Trump repeatedly refers to EO 2.0 as a "fix" for EO 1.0 shows that he cares less about policy details than he does about his image to his base. This entire fiasco is a political stunt.

lonelycrowd

There are rumors of a new cable this morning being reported by credible news organizations that appears to effectively spell doom for the remaining diversity cases unless State is thinking of a last minute surge in the last few days of September. Still not 100% clear if State will permit diversity cases that also have family ties to proceed, but reporting today is not making me optimistic - they really seem to want to implent the stay on at least some applicants.

Yet, some of the remaining DV winners are surprisingly hopeful. Watch out for a possible hail-mary case arguing that winning the lottery in and of itself provides standing.

GUWonder

Cable sent late yesterday and examined at our facilities in Europe today excludes: grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, fiancees and other family members.

I find this rather ridiculous since these are often people who may even have resided in the same foreign household as the US persons with whom they are claiming a relationship.

Boggie Dog

Seems reasonable. During my years in the military a request for emergency leave in order to attend a funeral was often denied for anyone other than immediate family and that did not include grandparents, uncles, aunts, and such.

GUWonder

Seems unreasonable if it were always. People get leave quite routinely to attend funerals of such relatives. Also, keep in mind that for the peoples from the targeted, religiously-blacklisted countries, the idea of what constitutes a close family relationship is broader than a nuclear family of just those who are conjugal partners or the progeny of one conjugal partnership. Also, even US CBP routinely considers such people to constitute one party for purposes of immigration and customs controls.

Boggie Dog

Things change.

petaluma1

In many cases these not-close relatives may have acted in loco parentis for the person who is trying to enter the states. A comment I heard this morning says this is the area that will see lawsuits.

During the Nam years, I volunteered for the Red Cross's SMF program and often got leave for a military member to attend a funeral of these allegedly "not close" relatives.

GUWonder

The attempted excuse-making to try to justify the means to institute a "'Muslim ban", in part or in whole, is a constant from even before EO 1.0 was put in place. The people in favor of this ban are in favor of policies to prevent Muslim family reunification in the US in the hopes of dissuading otherwise admissible Muslims from remaining in, coming to or even returning to the US.

This is a pattern with this Admin: wreck families and travel for government-wrecked families in order to give a signal of "you and your kind aren't welcome here, so don't stay here, don't come here and don't return here -- even if born here.

Boggie Dog

I believe this action can be chalked up to issues other than a "Muslim" ban.

GUWonder

Just like the attempted excuse-making to try to justify the means to institute a "'Muslim ban", in part or in whole, is a constant from even before EO 1.0 was put in place. Familiar with the phrase, "a solution in search of a problem"? Finding "problem(s)" to justify the "solution" is how this action can be chalked up. It's not a chicken and egg problem.