Trump's Words Coming Back To Bite Him

With both The District Court of Hawaii and The District Court of Maryland granting a motion for a Temporary Restraining Order on President Trump's Muslim ban because it (1) Violates The Establishment Clause of The First Amendment; (2) Violates the equal protection guaranteed under the 5th Amendment's Due Process Clause on the basis of religion, national origin, nationality, or alienage; (3) Violates the INA Sec. 202 (a) code “No Person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of his race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence;” (4) Creates cognitive irreparable injury to Muslim Americans and their family and (5) Creates economic disparity for educational institutions and tourism. In states such as Hawaii, where tourism is the main economic driver, the State argues that the Executive Order will “have the effect of depressing international travel to and tourism in Hawai'i, which directly harms Hawaii's business and, in turn, the State's revenue.” Judge, Derrick K. Watson

As a quasi-sovereign state, Hawaii has its propriety interests and plays the role of Parens Patriae. The state also has universities like the University of Hawaii that would be financially impacted by the Muslim ban. The 6 countries affected by the ban (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) are countries the university recruits from. The University of Hawaii has twenty-three graduate students, a hand full of faculty members, and twenty-nine visiting faculty members from the six Muslim countries targeted by the ban. Outside of the financial impact with regards to tuition and the risk of “dissuading some of the university's current professors or scholars from continuing their scholarships in the United States at the university,” Suppl. Dickson Decl. The ban would damage “the collaborative exchange of ideas among people of different religious and national backgrounds on which the State's educational institutions depend.” Judge, Derrick K. Watson

Dr. Elshikh, who is a plaintiff along with the State of Hawaii is a prime example of the ban's cognitive irreparable injury on Muslim Americans and their family. Dr. Elshikh is a Muslim American of Egyptian descent. He is an Imam and a leader within Hawaii's Islamic community. Dr. Eishikh wife is of Syrian descent. They have young Muslim American children. In September 2015, Dr. Elshikh & his wife filed an I-130 Petition for Alien Relative for his mother-in-law who lives in Syria. On January 31, 2017, Dr. Elshikh discovered that his mother-in-law's visa application was put on hold due to the implementation of the 1st Executive Order No. 13,769. Now in a state of cognitive irreparable injury due to the 2nd Executive Order No. 13,780. he argues that “his children are deeply affected by the knowledge that the United States -their own country- would discriminate against individuals who are of the same ethnicity as them, including members of their own family, and who hold the same religious beliefs. They do not fully understand why this is happening, but they feel hurt, confused, and sad.” He further explains that “having to live in a country and in a State where there is the perception that the Government has established a disfavored religion further stigmatizes not only immigrants and refugees, but also Muslim citizens of the United States” in addition that “members of the Mosque will not be able to associate as freely with those of other faiths.”

Acting as Parens Patriae, The District Court of Hawaii establishes another key reason for the motion of its Temporary Restraining Order on the Muslim ban, "subjecting citizens of Hawai'i like Dr. Elshikh to discrimination and marginalization while denying all residents of the State the benefits of a pluralistic and inclusive society. Hawai'i has a quasi-sovereign interest in securing its residents from the harmful effects of discrimination." Judge, Derrick K. Watson

For the definitive outcome of the Temporary Restraining Order placed on the ban, both The District Court of Hawaii and The District Court of Maryland emphasized Trump's preconceived agenda with creating a Mulsim ban, through his public statements and aggressive stands with linking Muslims to global terrorism. In their decision, the courts referred to Village of Arlington Heights v. Metro Hous, Dev. Corp., 439 us.s 252, 266-68 (1977) which states that “explaining the circumstantial evidence of intent, including the historical background of the decision and statements by decision makers, may be considered in evaluating whether a governmental action was motivated by a discriminatory purpose.”

On January 28, 2017, A day following the signage of the first Executive Order No. 13,769. President Trump's advisor, Rudolph Giuliani, explained to the news media how it was created. "When Mr. Trump first announced it, he said, 'Muslim ban.' He called me up. He said, 'Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally."'

On December 7, 2015, on his presidential campaign website, Donald Trump wrote:“Statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration- Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” He promoted this statement on Twitter the same day, “I just put out a very important policy statement on the extraordinary influx of hatred & danger coming into our country. We must be vigilant!”

On March 9, 2016, in an exclusive interview with CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, Trump stated that “Islam hates us.” America has “allowed this propaganda to spread all through the country that Islam is a religion of peace.” Furthermore, “we have to be very vigilant. We have to be very careful. And we can't allow people coming into this country who have this hatred of the United States..and of people that are not Muslim.” When asked by Cooper "Is there a war between the West and radical Islam, or between the West and Islam itself?Trump responded that “It's very hard to separate. Because you don't know who's who.”

On March 22, 2016, in an interview with Fox Business, Trump stated that “we're having problems with the Muslims, and we're having problems with Muslims coming into the country.”

On October 9, 2016, in a televised presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, when asked by the moderator "your running mate said this week that the Muslim ban is no longer your position. Is that correct? And if it is, was it a mistake to have a religious test?" Trump responded that “the Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into an extreme vetting from certain areas of the world. It's called extreme vetting.”

In an interview on January 27th, 2017 with Christian Broadcast Network, about Syria, Trump falsely stated “Do you know if you were a Christian in Syria it was impossible, at least very tough to get into the United States? if you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible and the reason that was so unfair, everybody was persecuted in all fairness, but they were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so Christians. And I thought it was very, very unfair. So we are going to help them.” Trump is calling for an expedited vetting process for Christians within the 6 Muslim countries affected by the ban, however, these 6 countries have a Muslim population of 90.7%-99.8%.

"the notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed." Judge Derrick K. Watson They also reasoned that the Executive Order is a violation of the>span class="s2"> Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment “The Executive Order violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Because a reasonable, objective observer - enlightened by the specific historical context, contemporaneous public statements, and specific sequence of events leading to its issuance - would conclude that the Executive Order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion.” Using the "Lemon Test" Lemon v Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602,612-13 (1971) and Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228, 244 (1982) the courts concluded that “the clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another.”

Since the discovery of The New World, immigrants have been the lynchpin with making America great. To quote President Johnson, “We ask not where a person comes from but what are his personal qualities.”