The Dangerous Precedent Set by Judicial Attacks on Trump's Travel Ban
Judge Derrick Watson’s imaginative reasoning asserts a new power to disregard formal law if the president’s words create a basis for mistrusting his motives.
Let’s start with the law.
The president of the United States has power to bar “any class of aliens” both as immigrants and as nonimmigrants and to impose on their ordinary comings and goings “any restrictions he may deem appropriate.”
That’s the language of the U.S. Code, the law of the land as enacted by Congress, under Congress’ own constitutional power over immigration and naturalization.
Presidential power is never absolute, of course. It’s always subject to the Constitution. Many have argued that Trump's ban is unconstitutional because—as the president himself
