Trump's Immigration Ban and A Constitution In Peril - John Tirman

The fact that the Customs and Border Protection agency is defying court orders not to enforce certain provisions of the ban means we have a constitutional fracture just 10 days into Trump's presidency.

The imbroglio caused by President Trump’s executive order on immigration and refugees is, above all, a constitutional crisis. As was apparent in the first two days after the order was signed on Friday, the crisis pivots not only on the substantive merits of the White House action — whether or not certain classes of people can be banned from entering the United States — but the fact that the Customs and Border Protection agency is defying court orders not to enforce certain provisions of the ban. Thus, by the 10th day of the Trump presidency, a constitutional fracture was emerging.

The manner in which travelers have in fact been detained, questioned, prevented from entry or flights and denied access to legal counsel also prohibits the due process clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

This is, like the Custom and Border Protection’s violation of court orders, a crime of implementation rather than inherent in the executive order. But the order was inviting such insolence by its vague, broad and discriminatory language.

It is this implementation that sparks fresh worries about the Trump regime. The ban itself, for all its detestable qualities, was promised by Trump during the campaign, and will likely be overturned in court. But the process of realizing that promise has been fraught with incompetence and malevolence.

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