Law professor and political commentator Jonathan Turley recently weighed in on the Trump administration’s court battles over immigration policy.
After issuing a flurry of executive orders targeting illegal immigration, President Donald Trump was faced with a barrage of lawsuits coming from left-leaning organizations. The White House has had mixed results in the courts so far. But a recent Supreme Court ruling allowing the administration to continue deporting illegal immigrants to third countries (nations from which they do not come) has given it a substantial victory.
During an interview on “Fox and Friends” with host Lawrence B. Jones, Turley gave his analysis of the situation, saying the Supreme Court could give Trump another significant victory.
Jones brought up Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion in the recent case. “Rather than allowing our lower court colleagues to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention it plainly requires, this court now intervenes to grant the government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied,” she said.
Jones pointed out that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claims the deportees’ home countries will not accept them back. “Countries are not clamoring to get more felons to augment their home population,” he said.
The host referred to the debate over whether illegal immigrants should still get a form of due process before being removed from the country. He asked Turley, “Is this a temporary decision, or does htis put the issue to bed?”
Turley replied, affirming that the Supreme Court’s ruling “is temporary in the sense that hte court of appeals decision will go forward.” However, the majority “has signaled that they do not believe that they are going to prevail on the merits here.”
Jonathan Turley predicts the Supreme Court could give the Trump administration an "enormous victory" on immigration.
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“The court could very well say, ‘Enough. We're not going to have individual judges now freezing the entire United States government on critical programs like… pic.twitter.com/pfZm9oXqQZ
The Trump administration on Tuesday accused US District Judge Brian Murphy of defying the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing the White House to deport illegal immigrants to third countries without appropriate due process. The judge had previously ruled that the White House must provide a period of time in which a deportee can challenge the proceedings. The Supreme Court overruled this injunction, but Murphy has kept it in place, arguing that the Court’s ruling did not apply specifically to his earlier decision.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a motion characterized Murphy’s refusal to comply with the Supreme Court ruling as a “lawless act of defiance.” The agency requested that the high court confirm its order extends to Murphy’s injunction.
Jones then asked what progressive opponents of the administration might do in response to the Supreme Court ruling.
“Well, as you know, Lawrence, this is a full-court press among advocates for these individuals and their attorneys. They're trying to find every angle to help their clients,” Turley replied. “They're going to many of these favorable jurisdictions and favorable judges, like the one in Boston, and they're issuing these injunctions.”
The professor continued, explaining that the Supreme Court might be instrumental in solving what has been a heated debate over the past six months: Whether federal judges should possess the authority to issue nationwide injunctions on the White House’s policies. “The court could very well say, ‘Enough. We're not going to have individual judges now freezing the entire United States government on critical programs like this.’"
If this were to happen, it would definitely be a massive victory for the Trump administration. One of the ways progressives have been able to stymie the president’s agenda is through federal judges placing injunctions on his executive orders that cover the entire nation, rather than the district in which the judge sits.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the matter, and if the decision goes Trump’s way, it will deal a devastating blow to Democrats seeking to use lawfare to prevent the president from enacting his agenda on immigration and several other matters.
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