On the same day the Justice Department told a federal court there would be no point in further court battles over President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration, the president himself said that he will issue a new executive order on immigration by next week.
According to NBC News, in a filing submitted to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday, the government said, “The President intends in the near future to rescind the order and replace it with a new, substantially revised executive order to eliminate what the panel erroneously thought were constitutional concerns.”
Meanwhile, at a news conference at the White House on Thursday, Trump said that his new order would “comprehensively protect our country,” and hinted that it might contain new vetting measures for travelers, the Washington Post reports.
“Extreme vetting will be put in place, and it already is in place in many places,” Trump said, adding that the administration “had to go quicker than we thought” because a federal appeals court refused to lift the suspension on his ban.
As previously reported on The Root, the president issued an executive order banning refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. Following lawsuits filed by the states of Washington and Minnesota, a federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of the ban just one week later, and last week a U.S. federal appeals court upheld that ruling and refused to lift the suspension.
Although the Justice Department contends that the ruling was flawed, it said the most appropriate course now “would be for the court to hold its consideration of the case until the president issued the new order.”
From NBC News:
Most legal experts agree that when a revised executive order is issued, the court ruling blocking enforcement of the current one would cease to have legal effect, and the government could immediately begin enforcing the new one.
That might launch a whole new round of lawsuits. If the new order applied to a smaller group of people, such as those from the affected countries who have never come to the US before, it might be harder to defeat in court.
But if it covers the same countries as the original order, challengers could be expected to argue that it discriminates on the basis of religion. A federal judge in Virginia issued a ruling Feb.13 blocking enforcement of part of the executive order in that state.
Judge Leonie Brinkema said the travel restrictions improperly discriminated against Muslims.
It will be interesting to see what the revised executive order looks like. The original order was obviously anti-Muslim, despite government protests to the contrary. Trump campaigned on a promise to keep Muslims out of “our country,” so it’s hard to imagine that he will completely shift his position that quickly. As it is, he has already overplayed his hand.
We are only four weeks into this administration, and it is the most racist, xenophobic shit show we have seen in our lives.
Read more at NBC News and the Washington Post.