Editorial: The Trump Administration Is Creating A Constitutional Crisis By Ignoring Federal Judges On Muslim-Ban

Editorial: The Trump Administration Is Creating A Constitutional Crisis By Ignoring Federal Judges On Muslim-Ban

Donald Trump only needed to be in office for one week before creating a constitutional crisis the likes of which America hasn’t seen in several decades.

Here is how it all went down.

First, late on Friday, Donald Trump issued an executive order essentially banning millions of Muslims and refugees from entering the United States. Trump’s ban also extended to about 500,000 legal permanent residents of the United States who happen to be from one of the 7 countries he arbitrarily selected. However, the Trump Administration has since walked that part back – mostly.

As a result of the executive order, dozens of people including U.S. citizens, permanent residents and student visa holders were detained at airports around the country throughout the weekend. Thousands more have been left unsure whether they can come back to the United States. These people include students, business people and others who have families in the United States.

Over the weekend massive protests broke out at airports and in cities around the country against Trump’ Muslim-ban.

And it turns out it wasn’t just Trump’s idea that was stupid, his execution of it has been just as awful. As we have learned over the last few days, Trump excluded the countries from which terrorists have actually traveled from to commit attacks on the United States – Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emeritus – and included seven predominantly Muslim countries whose citizens have never carried out an attack on the U.S.

But those countries that Trump left off the list are also unique for another reason, they just so happen to be countries where Donald Trump has business interests. Anyone surprised?

We also learned over the weekend and Monday that Trump and company rushed the Executive Order through so fast that the appropriate parties in the federal government did not have time to review it and provide feedback. Some people, including Trump’s Secretary of Defense and his Secretary of Homeland Security were completely blindsided by the announcement.

And as many media outlets have reported, the data doesn’t support Trump’s Executive Order because the average American has a much higher chance of being hit by lightening are vastly more likely than your chances of being killed by a refugee or even and foreign terrorist. Here are the facts: The chances of an American being killed foreigner in an attack on U.S. soil is 1 in 3.6 million per year. And the chances of an American being killed in an attack by a refugee is 1 in 3.64 billion per year.

All of this is a total and complete mess. There is no better way to describe it.

It is a mess because Trump’s executive order amounts to a Muslim-ban – period. And runs counter to the most important and basic of our country’s values.

It is a mess because Trump and his incompetent team arbitrarily picked seven countries to ban travel from.

It is a mess because Trump not so surprisingly left off all the countries where he has financial interests.

It is a mess because Trump’s policy is based on epically bad data and logic. Banning Muslims will not make us safer.

This is the mess. It is bad policy, bad governing, bad leadership. Everything about it is bad.

So you are probably thinking, well it couldn’t get much worse, right? No – it can get worse and Donald Trump has already started making it worse.

Donald Trump has now created a constitutional crisis because he is choosing not to only selectively adhere to the federal judges who have ruled against him.

That is a huge problem for our democracy.

On Saturday night, a judge in Brooklyn ordered an emergency stay against the Trump administration to stop deporting refugees and visitors immigration authorities had previously cleared to enter the country.

Two judges in Massachusetts ordered that travelers who were legally authorized to be in the United States shouldn’t be detained at or deported from Logan International Airport for a period of seven days.

A judge in Seattle halted the deportation of two travelers.

And a judge in Virginia issued an order requiring the administration to allow lawyers access to lawful permanent residents — also known as green card holders — that have been detained by Border Protection at Dulles International Airport.

For the entirety of our country’s history, when a federal judge has ruled, the rest of the government including the president have accepted the court ruling. If a president ignores the ruling of a judge, they are violating both the law and the Constitution.

But guess what? The Trump administration has not been complying with the judges’ rulings.

A senior White House official told NBC News that, “Saturday’s ruling does not undercut the president’s executive order. All stopped visas will remain stopped. All halted admissions will remain halted. All restricted travel will remain prohibited.”

I don’t know about you but to me that doesn’t sound like you are complying with a judges orders. It actually sounds a lot like you are not.

And throughout the weekend Customs and Border Protection officials refused to obey the Virginia judge’s order to allow lawyers access to detainees at Dulles.