Immigration, Justice

Hawaii Strikes Down The Grandma Ban

The most obvious ruling against the Travel Ban yet.

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The Trump administration’s attempt to legislate bigotry was dealt another blow today when a federal judge in Hawaii ruled that grandparents count as “family,” regardless of country of origin.

It is, possibly, the most obvious ruling yet against the sloppy effort by Trump and the Roberts Court to discriminate against Muslims without looking like they’re discriminating against Muslims.

For those who haven’t been following along this summer, let’s briefly run through where we stand with the Travel Ban, so you can see how today’s decision was entirely predictable:

  • In late June, the Roberts Court lifted the injunction against Trump’s travel ban for people with no connection to the United States, but maintained it for people with a “bona fide connection” to U.S. citizens or institutions.
  • Except the Court did not spell out what a “bona fide connection” would be. They left that call to the executive. It’s the kind of judicial deference that would make sense if we were dealing with a basically competent or even halfway literate executive branch.
  • Instead, the unreformed bigots working for Trump came out with the narrowest possible list of bona fide connections. Which, again, would probably be fine since the Court clearly anticipated that any list emanating from this White House would be pretty narrow. But…
  • This list was also stupid and inconsistent. Stepchildren counted as “family,” — which is not surprising from the President with an NBA roster of children over a minor harem of wives — but grandparents did not. The list was so poorly thought out that mere days after issuing it, the State Department had to revise it to include fiancés/fiancées in the group of people with bona fide connections to the U.S. Think about that for a second: you’re trying to figure out who is allowed to come into the country, and you just forget to include people about to get married to American citizens? That’s just shoddy work.
  • Hawaii, and 15 other states, almost immediately sued over the administration’s narrow definition of “family.” That’s the way it’s going to work now, for the rest of Trump’s term. His policies are so obviously bigoted and so legally lazy that we’re going to end up asking the courts to “clarify” every single one.

Which brings us to U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson, who issued a total smackdown of the grandma ban. From NBC News:

“The Government’s definition represents the antithesis of common sense,” Watson said in his ruling. “Common sense, for instance, dictates that close family members be defined to include grandparents.”

Watson ruled the government cannot use a main provision of the travel ban to exclude “grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins of persons in the United States.”

“The Government’s definition represents the antithesis of common sense” should be the epithet for this administration. Given that Trump’s supporters know what less than 50% of those words mean, it would make a particularly elegant inscription on the regime’s headstone.

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Honestly, what choice did Judge Watson have here? The Roberts Court basically said “Here son, I caught you a firefly” and Trump said “AHH, BLERRGG, SMASH STOMP STOMP, uhh… this one’s broken, can I have another one?” Watson had to say no.

I’m mildly interested to see if the Trump people appeal this decision, first to the Ninth Circuit (where they will lose again) and then to the Supreme Court. It would make no sense for them to do so, but this is Trump we’re talking about, and the rules of logic don’t apply.

But I really hope that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy are watching what’s going on here. The Court gave the Trump administration a chance to narrowly tailor its travel ban, and they mucked it up so royally that courts had to smack it around less than a month later. If you give this administration ANY opportunity to be bigoted, THEY’LL TAKE IT. And they’ll take it in an embarrassing, shoddy way that all but requires the courts to step in again.

Is this what the Supreme Court wants? Do they want to authorize a narrow travel ban, which the administration quickly metastasizes into a broader Muslim Ban, which the courts then have to step in and curtail again?

You give this administration an inch, and it’ll take a mile-long dump on Twitter, making you look stupid for anticipating anything less. The question is really: How many other travel ban cases does Roberts want to hear in his lifetime?

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Federal Judge Loosens ‘Travel Ban’ Restrictions to Exempt Grandparents, Others [NBC News]

Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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