Who are a Federal judge’s—at any level of the judicial hierarchy—constituents? I asked this question of a number of folks, and the most cogent answer I got was this: “in order, the law and justice.” Even that answer, though, is only about one-third right IMNSHO.
Here is the first oath of office Federal judge and Justice must take; it’s the same as any Congressman must take.
The 4th Circuit Appellate Court is hearing the Trump administration’s appeal of Hawaii and Maryland Federal trial judges’ preliminary injunctions blocking implementation of the President Donald Trump’s second Executive Order imposing a temporary travel delay of its own on persons from six Middle East nations from entering the United States (with provisions for case-by-case exceptions). Even though Hawaii is in the 9th Circuit and not the 4th, I’m using the Hawaii ruling as my example here since the Maryland ruling is substantially the same, the Hawaii ruling is more readily available, and I’m lazy.
One Syrian, Kassem Eid an erstwhile media activist in Syria, and a victim of the gas attack that was Bashar al-Assad’s calling of then-President Barack Obama’s (D) bluff of a “red” line and that exposed Obama has being too timid to back his words, had a thought about aid and support to Syria’s refugees in a recent Wall Street Journal. Here’s the money quote.
America, if you really care about refugees, then take to the streets, call your representatives, and ask for even further action against the murderer who displaced us. President Trump could order strikes to fully ground Assad’s air force, whose bombing forces civilians to flee. The Assad regime still has more than a dozen operational military airports from which to continue its attacks. Help civilians by creating safe zones and no-fly zones.
This episode is from Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D). He claimed last Sunday, with a straight face that
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is “targeting” mayors like himself, and intimidating them into being “fugitive slave catchers that run around and do their bidding in our cities.”
Milwaukee County, WI, Sheriff David Clarke was more polite than I:
I’ve heard a lot of stupid things [but] comparing fugitive slaves to illegal immigrants is the gold standard of stupidity[.]
I say, rather, that Baraka’s TDS has turned him into an irrational election-denier.
In South Dakota v Dole, the Supreme Court ruled that the Federal government could not withhold already committed funds from States in amounts that could coerce the States into obeying Federal diktats, such withholdings were legal but only in amounts that would be persuasive rather than coercive (as an aside, the Court did not get around to identifying a threshold or a threshold region that would separate the coercive from the merely persuasive).
The irrationality of some Federal District judges is being made palpable by their rulings against the latest Executive Order involving a temporary moratorium on folks from six terrorist- and terrorism-supporting countries. Here’s one example, from US District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii:
The illogic of the Government’s contentions is palpable. The notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed.
Yet he chose not to explain his own logic, nor did he deign explain the limiting principle he holds underlying this claim. Indeed, he explicitly refused to explain himself:
San Francisco asked a federal judge Wednesday to block President Trump’s order threatening to strip federal funds from so-called sanctuary cities that bar police from enforcing immigration laws.
This suit has a good chance of succeeding. In 1987’s South Dakota v Dole, the Supreme Court ruled (in a dispute over the State’s minimum drinking age and Federal highway funds transfers to the State) that the Federal government cannot withhold already agreed Federal funds from a State in order to coerce State acquiescence with Federal wishes. Funds can be withheld to “persuade,” but the withheld funds must be related to the question at hand rather than a blanket withholding, and the amount withheld cannot be coercive in its size, but only persuasive. Without naming a threshold for the amount, the Court held that the 5% withholding imposed by the Federal government was not coercive.
Recall that President Donald Trump has signed a revised Executive Order that imposes a short moratorium on entry into the US from six (down from seven under his original EO) Middle Eastern countries. Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin has filed suit in Hawaii’s Federal District Court to try to block this new EO. The EO, Chin claims, will damage Hawaii’s
economy, educational institutions, and tourism industry; and it is subjecting a portion of the state’s citizens to second-class treatment and discrimination, while denying all Hawaii residents the benefits of an inclusive and pluralistic society.
That’s the subtitle of a Wall Street Journal op-ed. The answer should be obvious, too: it would be the height of jingo-ism to assert US government jurisdiction over non-citizens outside our borders—outside, for instance, the 14th Amendment’s subject to the jurisdiction of the US.
Firing into another country at a foreign national, especially one that’s a citizen of the country being fired into, could well be a violation, but that potential would be a violation of a different set of circumstances than the question before the Supremes in the present case, Hernandez v Mesa. That other set of circumstance has to do with international relations, foreign policy, the nature of casus belli, and on and on—and all purely political matters, not legal ones, and so not only a different set of circumstances, but a matter that’s outside the reach of court jurisdiction.
There’s a new sheriff in Phoenix, the one replacing Sheriff Arpaio, who was defeated in the election last fall. The new cop has withdrawn Arpaio’s policy of holding prisoners for as long as “necessary” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to come get those flagged for deportation.
I agree. Cooperation with the Feds is a two-way street; the Feds have to work with the locals, too.
[New Sheriff Paul Penzone] won’t hold immigrants flagged for deportation by federal authorities past their release date in a major policy change.