Hawaii: Rogue judge once again rules for the Imam, attempts to thwart Trump on refugees

Judge Derrick Watson

This latest was predicted and reported here by Michael Leahy at Breitbart two days ago.

Judge Derrick Watson took advantage of the mess the Supreme Court made in its recent ruling (as Justice Thomas predicted) to once again attempt to stop President Trump from carrying out a simple 120-day moratorium on refugee resettlement in order to analyze the program and determine whether security screening is sufficient.

The Supreme Court literally unconstitutionally legislated when it created a way to go around a Presidentially-determined ceiling as defined by over 3 decades of refugee law and said refugees with a “bona fide relationship” to a family member or to an “entity” could come in over the 50,000 ceiling reached yesterday (here).

BTW, today we have now exceeded the 50,000 ceiling by 168. We are at 50,168 this morning.

Before I give you Politico’s version of the judge’s decision in Hawaii yesterday, let me be clear!

The US State Department under Sec. of State Rex Tillerson must ignore this decision!

(They should have ignored this rogue judge’s earlier decision as well! You should write to the White House and tell Trump to stand against this runaway judiciary!)

One Hawaiian judge deciding for one Imam (and the refugee-rejecting state of Hawaii!) should not be the one to define “bona fide” a wholly new legal term and a new construct for resettlement thanks to the overzealous SCOTUS. Where the hell is Congress, btw? Writing law is their job!

Here is Politico:

A federal judge in Hawaii ordered the Trump administration on Thursday to allow grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles and other relatives of people in the U.S. to circumvent the travel ban policy, dealing a temporary blow to one of the president’s signature initiatives.

Along with the State of Hawaii, Imam Ismail Elshikh is a plaintiff in the case.

In an order issued Thursday evening local time in Honolulu, Judge Derrick Watson also prohibited the administration from blocking refugees with a commitment from a resettlement agency in the U.S., a move that could revive the flow of refugee admissions this year.

The decision was a victory for opponents of the travel ban, who hoped to broaden the universe of people who could bypass the president’s policy, which temporarily bars travelers from six majority-Muslim nations and suspends the refugee resettlement program.

The Supreme Court issued an order on June 26 that allowed the embattled measure to go into effect, but included the caveat that affected travelers with “bona fide” ties to a person or entity in the U.S. should not be subject to the ban.

[….]

In the realm of refugee resettlement, the administration stood by the contention that a connection to a resettlement agency alone would not meet the criteria to avoid the ban.

[….]

The federal judge added that a refugee with a commitment from a resettlement agency met the standard for a “bona fide” relationship spelled out in the Supreme Court order.

[….]

“It is formal, it is a documented contract, it is binding, it triggers responsibilities and obligations, including compensation, it is issued specific to an individual refugee only when that refugee has been approved for entry by the Department of Homeland Security, and it is issued in the ordinary course, and historically has been for decades,” he wrote. [Don’t let the refugee contractors*** fool you, here we have it, this is about their compensation by you, the American taxpayer!–ed]

“Bona fide does not get any more bona fide than that.”

[….]
On Twitter, an attorney for the plaintiffs, the state of Hawaii and a local imam, celebrated the momentary legal win, which could be met with appeals by the federal government.

Appeals! The Administration better simply ignore this single judge and the Imam!

This post is filed in my ‘Supreme Court’ category, click here for other stories on the hash the Supreme Court has made of refugee law.

***Federal contractors/middlemen/lobbyists/community organizers paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities. Because their income is largely dependent on taxpayer dollars based on the number of refugees admitted to the US, the only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove the contractors from the process.