The Constitutional claims are very strong, at least as applied to certain groups of people affected by the EO: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13531117.
You are conflating the right to enter the U.S. with due process rights relating to denial of U.S. entry. Only citizens have a right to enter the U.S. (i.e. they cannot be denied entry, period). But the Supreme Court has squarely held that permanent residents, at least, have a right to due process before being denied re-entry. That doesn't mean the government can't deny them re-entry, but it does mean that the government cannot do what it did here: deny them re-entry without individualized process (usually, a hearing).
The EO is going down. The only question is what parts of it will survive.
Delaying a re-entry application 3 months is hardly what passes for "unreasonable" in government circles. The fact that cases can still be reviewed and approved faster if necessary makes this even more reasonable legally.
> (e) Notwithstanding the temporary suspension imposed pursuant to subsection (a) of this section, the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may jointly determine to admit individuals to the United States as refugees on a case-by-case basis, in their discretion, but only so long as they determine that the admission of such individuals as refugees is in the national interest -- including when the person is a religious minority in his country of nationality facing religious persecution, when admitting the person would enable the United States to conform its conduct to a preexisting international agreement, or when the person is already in transit and denying admission would cause undue hardship -- and it would not pose a risk to the security or welfare of the United States.
If the EO had merely delayed applications for three months pending additional procedures, courts across the country wouldn't be granting TROs to stop enforcement of it.
Except, and here's the key thing, that never happened.
In response to a specific, concrete threat Obama instituted a much more limited delay on certain applications from Iraq in 2011 which had no effect on most visa categories or any already issued visas or LPRs.
And in 2015, the 7 countries subject or the 90 day ban in the Trump order were removed (4 by legislation, 3 by executive action) from the Visa Waiver Program, but no ban or delay of new visas, and no ban of entry by LPRs or persons with valid existing visa, was instituted.
People defending the Trump policy as nothing new continue to try to blend the 2011 action, the 2015 action, and a healthy dose of pure fantasy to argue that Obama did exactly what Trump did in this EO, but that is completely false and utterly dishonest.
I'm not super familiar with Obama's original order but any one of these three differences I think is enough to say that his order was substantially different.
> Aye, this is the crux of the matter, isn't it? I have a plane ticket from Canada to Europe in August, transiting in the USA and I have already contemplated changing my routing because who knows whether I will be admitted?
It is a direct response to "the crux of the matter". Trump isn't going to be banning countries on a whim.
I read in the news that the police detained up a murder suspect. Now I'm afraid that the police are coming for me even though I haven't hurt anyone. Logical?
Country A is temporarily banned for sponsoring or harboring terrorists. Person in Country B is afraid of being banned too even though their country doesn't support terrorism. Logical?
People are wrongly arrested every day. Few if any countries have been banned unjustly. If we cry out against a temporary ban, why not cry out even more about the wrongful arrests that take place much more frequently?
From my perspective, I am guessing that a lot of the original poster's issue comes from the more or less the haphazard, shoot from the hip way this executive order was implemented (temporarily blocking even green card holders for instance)... combined with Trump's past primary campaign rhetoric, which did call for a complete ban of all Muslims from the US at one point. It's less about what was in the order and more about how it was executed, in other words.
I am curious what makes you feel confident in your statement "Trump isn't going to be banning countries on a whim". That sounds a little too strongly certainty to me given the above.
Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc weren't "banned" because they share a great deal of information with us about people seeking entry into our country. The 7 "banned" countries do not. It's that simple.
It's about information exchange. We can't get enough info from the 7 "banned" countries to make informed pass/fail decisions about their travelers.
If sharing information with you as you said here is the most important yardstick,rather than subtle religion test,why is North Korea is not on the list?
North Korea is not on the list because literally nobody is travelling from North Korea to the United States.
As to Egypt, from what I've read, the current Egyptian government is trying to play ball with the US. No need to upend things.
Obama's people knew what they were doing (and probably knew a lot more than you or I). I'd love to know why Lebanon isn't on the list though.
I think you are totally missing the main opposition to the ban: not only is it ineffective, it also harms innocent people. So saying "he's following through on promises" should not be nearly enough to justify it. After all, one is entitled to expect the president to do a good job, not merely a legal job.
I am not a lawyer, but is seems like it should be illegal to deny refugees or immigrants based on religion.
Obama's administration (not Trump's) compiled the list of countries. It wasn't racial or "because they're Muslim" (most Muslims aren't banned).
What was the common thread between the countries? 6 out of the 7 countries have been on and off the US "State Sponsors of Terror" list for the past 40 years. Somalia (the one that hasn't been on the list) has spent most of the last 25 years in anarchy.
The law also explicitly gives the president the right to make the decision (see section f https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182).
In 1993, SCOTUS ruled that a much longer ban against the poor, non-terrorist, mostly black Haitian immigrants by Bush Sr. and Clinton was legal in an 8-1 ruling (http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/22/us/the-supreme-court-high-...).
The constitutional claim doesn't hold water (foreign nationals have no right to travel in the US and the countries were selected for terrorist connections). That leaves only interpretation of the law, but the law clearly states POTUS has the authority. A 3 month break to find out what policies to put in place against 7 problematic and terrorist sponsoring countries is hardly something SCOTUS will find unreasonable.
EDIT: for the record, I think the bans are ineffective at stopping terrorists and are just Trump following through on his populist promises. That's different from the legality of the decision. This isn't the only thing Trump is doing While everyone has eyeballs here, they miss everything else that's happening in DC, and he still gets to look good when SCOTUS agrees with him.