But I think it is also important to point out and to criticize the
substance of the decision that was made by the Federal court in Seattle
because that decision represented a departure from the judicial role. The judge in that case exercised his political will, not his legal
judgment, which is the antithesis of how Alexander Hamilton described
the proper role of the courts in the Federalist Papers. The judge there--if you read the opinion, it is a cursory opinion--
didn't even attempt to wrestle with the law at issue in the President's
executive actions on immigration. The reason why that is important is
because the law is very, very clear. This Congress has enacted a statute, section 1182(f) of the
immigration laws that says that the President has the authority to
suspend entry of foreign nationals when the President finds that entry
would be detrimental to the interests of the U.S. And so that is what
was cited. That provision of the law has not been questioned in over 60
years. The court in Seattle, though, questioned effectively the wisdom of
the executive order, not really the legality. And there was a part of
the oral argument before the judge issued his temporary retraining
order where he said that there hasn't been any terrorism from any
foreign national from any of the seven countries that were enumerated
from the visa suspension. It is Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya,
Sudan. And he said confidently that that had not happened. Well, that is not true. If you look at just recently, you had the
attacker in St. Cloud, Minnesota, September 2016, who was a Somali
refugee. You have the Ohio State attacker. That was just 2\1/2\ months
ago. He was running people over on campus and wielding a butcher knife
going after people. He was a refugee from Somalia. You had the two Iraqi refugees arrested in Bowling Green, Kentucky. They came as refugees, even though they had been active in fighting and
in killing American soldiers and Marines in Iraq. You also have the case, the Federal case in Houston last year with
the conviction of Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan. He came as a refugee from
Iraq and did get a green card, but he was convicted of material support
to ISIS for trying to bomb the shopping malls in Houston, Texas. So you have this judge who is ignoring the law, ignoring what
Congress has enacted, ignoring the President's authority, substituting
his own policy judgment, and he is not even right on the facts; doesn't
even really know what he is talking about. Here's the thing, also. Whether there have been attacks or arrests
from these countries really is not even relevant to the law at stake. I
mean, Bush could have suspended immigration from Saudi Arabia and Egypt
in January 2001. People would have been like: Why are you doing that? What's going on?
Keywords matched
immigration visa green card refugee refugees