Carl Johnson

The complexity is apparent even before you get into that part of it. Just think about this. Fundamentally, what is the jurisdiction wanting to do, is it wanting to favor motorists over pedestrians, keeping pedestrians from impeding the free flow of auto traffic? Is it worried only about safety, trying to allow pedestrians to cross whenever they can do so safely, and define safe conditions? Or does it have corrupt motives, like in Ferguson, Missouri, where it's trying to increase the number of minor criminal offenses? In that case, the jaywalking laws can be set up to make crossing less convenient, even when deviations can clearly be done safely, and knowing that there will be lots of violations and revenue for the jurisdiction. Anything can be done simply if the person responsible is not worried about doing it right.

Xyzzy

But that wording itself has proven to be a lie. The pause was suppsed to be so they could develop new procedures. It's now past the 90 and 120 day periods and the administration has not shown us any new procedures or evidence of trying to come up with new procedures. Instead, they are still trying to implement the "temporary" bans after the point when they should have gone away according to the EO.You are right - those reports can be used as evidence if the administration wants to do so. In practice, however, the justice department has offered ZERO proof. Judges have actually asked whether the justice department was going to offer any evidence. In every case it has declined to do so.

GUWonder

DOJ knows the dates on various docs would show this Muslim travel ban to be a matter of the Admin engaging in "fire first and ask questions later".

kmersh

I went to college with a member of the House of Representatives and we have remained goods friends to this day.

While he does not represent my district, I find that I get better information from him as I can call him directly than deal with my Congress Critters who while uniformly nice I find to be relatively useless.

Anyway, he got back to me RE: why the review of vetting processes was not conducted in the interim while the executive order worked its way through the courts.

He is a Republican and he always tells me he has to give anything related to Trump a positive spin regardless of personal opinion, but he admits that someone somewhere did not think things through.

Apparently, when the courts stopped (not sure of the correct legal term) the Travel Ban they also stopped the review of the vetting processes as the order to review the processes was included in the stopped executive order. Neither the DOJ lawyers nor the courts either realized nor thought through that and never requested to have the order for review of the processes separated from the travel ban portion of the order.

He also said that nobody on the Trump side of things either noticed or thought about separating the vetting order from the travel restriction order either, essentially everyone sort of screwed up somewhere.

Thus, why the administration is still litigating the order as the vetting review/change process was never accomplished in the first place.

Anyway, that what was really confusing me and at least one other person on this thread wondered the same thing and that seems to be the official answer and I should note that it took him some time to figure that out.

TWA884

That's correct.

The Ninth Circuit, however, overturned the part of the injunction that prevented the administration from reviewing the vetting procedures.
P.S. The legal term is "enjoin" - prohibit someone from performing a particular action by issuing an injunction.

lonelycrowd

This still doesn't quite add up. My recollection of Kellyanne and other "talking heads" in the weeks following 13769 and 13780 is that part of the policy argument for the initial 90 day pause was that curtailing visa processing would free up institutional resources at State to conduct the necessary review to draft the list of countries for permanent exclusion. Presumably, if we take the administration's surrogates at their word, the consular fellows and other frontline officers normally tasked with conducting blacklist interviews at posts such as Abu Dhabi, Khartoum, and Casablanca would have contributed to the review of perceived deficiencies with the screening process and provided input on requests to be made to the blacklist (and potentially other) governments.

If State claimed to have the institutional capacity to conduct the review while continuing to process those cases ineligible for a waiver, the argument for pausing all visa processing (except for the basic document preparation done at the Kentucky Consular Center and National Visa Center) during the review period itself would have been undermined...

GUWonder

By late next week or even earlier, the Supreme Court will most probably make a public announcement about some kind of decision on this EO and the cases around it. It seems like a decision of sort has probably already been reached about what to do for at least an interim period before they really dig into th cases.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireS...-time-48229423

leungy18

I'd recommend subscribing to these two travel ban cases on SCOTUSblog.

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files...tance-project/

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files...rump-v-hawaii/

GUWonder

Last day of SCOTUS for this term is today. That means either SCOTUS will make an announcement about the interim period or decides the situation can wait until later.

leungy18

SCOTUS has granted certiorari on the travel ban case.

Oral arguments will most likely be held in October.

kalderlake

So they've agreed to hear arguments, presumably in October, and maintained the current stays (suspensions) of the Moslem Ban?

Boggie Dog

Not exactly.

See

http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/06/li...s-opinions-10/

For more detailed information.

leungy18

SCOTUS has decided to stay in part the revised executive order during the summer.

The Trump administration's travel ban will be in effect with the exception of anyone who can claim a bona fide relationship with any person or entity in the United States. So relatives, investors, students, employees can still apply for visas and green cards if they have proof of said relationship -- a letter of acceptance, a contract, a birth or marriage certificate. Refugees will have to demonstrate said relationship as well.

The partially lifted stay will stall the plans of tourists -- basically anyone uncovered under this exception and the exceptions of EO-2.

I presume that this majority opinion is composed of Roberts, Kennedy, and the 4 liberal justices (Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer). The 3 arch-conservative justices (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch) have filed a separate opinion dissenting in part, saying that they would stay in full the injunction and allow the travel ban to take effect in full.

lonelycrowd

I'm still reading and making sense of the ruling, but can't help myself from being drawn back into this thread...

Page 16 of the ruling:

So it does seem (to my surprise) that the court bought the argument that some of the institutional "resources" to be freed by not admitting the small handful of affected individuals seeking visas without significant ties to the US could facilitate the supposedly 20-day process of determining the deficiencies in the current clearance process in relation to the blacklist countries, yet for whatever reason decided to allow the stay to continue into the 50 day response period. How, exactly, a few dozen or even a few hundred extra appointment slots at an already backlogged consular post like Ankara will contribute to the review process remains a bit of a mystery... clearly the Supreme Court is inclined at this phase to take the executive branch at its word, which may ironically come back to haunt the administration in the fall.

Does anyone know if the list of demands for each country will be released to the public? While I fear that the outcome may be preordained as was probably the case with the DS-5535, my family will certainly be providing our input to the stakeholders involved, including the Iranian section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington.

I stopped updating on my personal case in this thread as I've tried to move on from this whole saga, but I guess now is a good time for an update. Fortunately, my brother in law had his first entry three weeks ago and collected that vital endorsement stamp at BOS that converted his DV2 visa to an I-551 "temporary green card," and thus he should be in the clear as he is officially a US resident. He's back in Iran now while waiting for his daughter to finish preschool, and will be coming with his wife and daughter on a more permanent basis in late July. So, I believe we have practically dogged a bullet on this one. While all diversity visa appointments for this year have passed, many spouses and primary applicants alike remain stuck in administrative processing and by my count would have only four days to the end of the DV cycle should the "ban" lift 90 days from today. I am very, very, very, very, very thankful not to be in their shoes right now, and feel more than a little troubled by the arbitrariness of the date of this ruling which, if I am reading correctly, does not even have the 10-day phase in period we got with the executive order in the first place. I get that the Justices feel entitled to take a hard-earned summer vacation, but they've inflicted a lot of stress and harm on a small group of people who could never have anticipated this outcome when the lottery was held last May.

catocony

The Supreme Court has effectively given the administration a fair bit of rope to hang themselves with. If, as expected, there really is no plan to have the ban "temporary" and there won't be any review of current policies, then the Court will almost certainly strike it down. They're basically saying "we're taking you at your word, but if you reneg, then we'll strike it down".

It's a somewhat prudent move on the Court's part. Unfortunate for tourists from those countries, but that seems to be the price to pay for forcing the Administration's hand.