The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond upheld a stay against President Trump’s second attempt to ban people from majority Muslim countries from coming into the US.
Today’s ruling follows a hearing two weeks ago which saw hundreds of protestors descend on Virginia’s Capital to show their support for those the President hoped to exclude.
“I saw this ban for exactly what it was, as have courts across the country,” said Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. Herring, a Democrat who made headlines for supporting the fight for marriage equality, had joined 17 other states in a brief challenging Trump’s ban which had made a few, but apparently not enough, changes in the hopes of stopping “bad dudes” from entering the US.
Read about a Virginia woman impacted by the travel ban here.
“Surely the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment yet stands as an untiring sentinel for the protection of one of our most cherished founding principles—that government shall not establish any religious orthodoxy, or favor or disfavor one religion over another,” wrote Chief Justice Roger Gregory in today’s opinion slamming Trump’s travel ban Executive order. “Congress granted the President broad power to deny entry to aliens, but that power is not absolute.”
Justice Gregory pointed to language in Trump newest travel ban executive order, issued March 6th, which asks to “prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality.”
While this doesn’t target Muslims, it does give preferential treatment for Christians which violates the first amendment.
“[Tump’s] Muslim ban still suffers from a fatal dose of religious animus,” Herring said in a statement, pointing to the Appeals Court’s argument. “It is so appropriate that the bedrock principle of religious freedom has again been affirmed by a Court sitting just blocks from where Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom was signed.”
Justice Gregory also pointed to Trump’s campaign rhetoric as a source of concern for his hopeful ban.
“On December 7, 2015, then-candidate Trump published a “Statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration” on his campaign website, which proposed “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” reads the brief pointing to a since-removed section of Trump’s campaign site.
He also pointed to a Trump tweet released the same day as the statement above: “Just put out a very important policy statement on the extraordinary influx of hatred & danger coming into our country.”
Notes on Trump’s campaign speeches, the now famous Rudy Giuliani speech where he said Trump asked him to make a legal “Muslim ban,” and other public instances where Trump or his surrogates hinted at a religious-bias all helped contribute to the court’s findings.
You can read all of the opinion here – it’s long and jargon-filled, but a lot of fun to read if you’re into twisting a knife in Trump’s back.
The opinion was only released a few hours ago, and with Trump overseas, he might be unable to fully respond to this breaking news – but we’ll be sure to keep an eye on twitter later tonight to see what unfolds.
