Can a federal district judge in Denver, or San Francisco, or New York, or Dallas, issue an order that can effectively rule the world?
That’s a question getting more and more attention after a series of entry-level judges in the federal court system have taken it upon themselves to tell the president of the United States which immigrants he must allow into America from around the globe, explains a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The arguments on President Trump’s “travel ban,” his orders that limit arrivals in the U.S. from terrorist hotbeds around the world, were heard before the U.S. Supreme Court just weeks ago, and a decision isn’t expected for some months.
The fact that a single judge anywhere in the country can somehow overrule the president of the United States from exercising a power explicitly granted him by the Constitution raises a question: Just what can those judges, who operate at the lowest level of the federal judiciary system, truly control?
A report from the Congressional Research Service suggests the Supreme Court may not address the issue “meaningfully” any time soon, but there’s already a proposal in Congress that bluntly would put limits on the reach of their rulings.
H.R. 4927 would amend title 28 of the U.S. code “to limit the authority of district courts to provide injunctive relief.”
The CRS reported, “In order for the Supreme Court to reach the issue of the scope of the injunction, the court would have to decide both jurisdictional and merits questions in favor of the respondents. And, even if the court reaches the question about the appropriate scope of relief, arguments about the constitutional necessity for uniformity with respect to immigration law may limit the broad applicability of any ruling.
“Nonetheless, at oral argument one justice – Justice Gorsuch – did signal some concern about the broader trend of issuing universal injunctions, noting in a question for the respondent’s attorney the ‘troubling rise of the nationwide injunction, cosmic injunction … not limited to relief for the parties at issue or even a class action.'”
The issue most recently has concerned those lower court judges ruling in favor of states or groups that object to the president’s limitations on immigrants. Some of those locations from which newcomers would be banned are heavily Muslim populations, as well as being homes to terror groups, and the president’s critics charge that it’s “a Muslim ban.”
In fact, the ban would affect only a small percentage of Muslims around the globe. Nevertheless, several activist judges on the bench have jumped at the opportunity to negate Trump’s efforts to protect the U.S. from importing Islamic terrorists.
For the rest of this report, and more, please go to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
