A federal District Court judge in Maryland is considering whether he should order President Donald Trump to double the annual inflow of refugees up to 100,000 per year.
Any demand by the judge that the federal government airbus an extra 50,000 migrants — including many adherents of Islam’s sharia legal system — into American neighborhoods would be an unusual intervention into government roles normally left to the elected President and Congress.
If actually implemented, the judge’s plan also would be extremely expensive for Americans, because state and local communities subsidize each new immigrant with roughly $1,600 each per year for decades.
The judge revealed his proposal in a footnote in his March 15 decision where he denounced Trump’s reformist Executive Orders, which sharply curbs the inflow of refugees from war-torn Islamic countries. The judge’s footnote declared:
On February 22, 2017, Plaintiffs filed a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction of S 5(d) of the Executive Order, ECF No. 64, requesting that the Court enjoin a specific provision of the First Executive Order. With the agreement of the parties, the Court set a briefing and hearing schedule extending to March 28, 2017. The Court will resolve that Motion, which the parties have agreed should be construed to apply to the successor provision of the Second Executive Order, in accordance with the previously established schedule.
The language targeted by the judge is in Trump’s first version of the Executive Order, the Jan. 27 E.O. 13769, “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.” The language announced the government’s intention to halve the annual inflow of refugees from the 100,000 level sought by former President Barack Obama, who frequently derided Americans for getting “attached to our particular tribe.”
According to Section 5 of Trump’s January E.O.:
(d) Pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the entry of more than 50,000 refugees in fiscal year 2017 would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and thus suspend any such entry until such time as I determine that additional admissions would be in the national interest.
Similar language appears in Section 6(b) of the upgraded March 6 E.O. 13780, also titled “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.”
(b) Pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, I hereby proclaim that the entry of more than 50,000 refugees in fiscal year 2017 would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and thus suspend any entries in excess of that number until such time as I determine that additional entries would be in the national interest.
The plaintiffs’ request for 100,000 refugees each year was made by lawyers for the International Refugee Assistance Protect, HIAS Inc., a so-called “VOLAG” which is paid by federal agencies to import refugees, and by members of the Middle East Studies Association.
“Judge Chuang’s ruling … leaves the door open for further discussion of our challenges to the refugee ban, an opening we intend to pursue,” said a March 15 statement from HIAS. “So stay tuned for more news as our lawsuit continues.” HIAS received at least $19.5 million in government grants in 2014, according to its federal 990 form.
HIAS employees did not answer calls and emailed questions from Breitbart.
Trump’s decision to reduce the annual inflow of refugees was promised and debated during the 2016 campaign. Based on his promise to the voters, Trump won, much to the distress of progressives. Multiple polls show Trump’s immigration reforms are popular.
The law cited by Trump, Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, gives the President near-complete power over who gets into the United States, according to a January 2017 report by Congress’ Congressional Research Service. The critical language declares, at 8 U.S.C. § 1182 (f) that:
Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate
Section 214(a)(1) of the same law says that the “admission of any alien to the United States as a nonimmigrant shall be for such time and under such conditions as [the Executive] may by regulations prescribe.”
The President’s authority over immigration is bolstered by Supreme Court decisions. For example, the court declared in its 1950 judgment lawsuit, titled Knauff v. Shaughnessy, that “It is not within the province of any court, unless expressly authorized by [congressional] law, to review the determination of the political branch of Government to exclude a given alien.”
In 2015, the Court reasserted that judgment, saying in Kerry v. Din, that:
Din attempts to bring suit on [her Afghan husband’s] behalf, alleging that the Government’s denial of her husband’s visa application violated her constitutional rights… In particular, she claims that the Government denied her due process of law when, without adequate explanation of the reason for the visa denial, it deprived her of her constitutional right to live in the United States with her spouse. There is no such constitutional right.
Already, the law and the Supreme Court’s rulings prompted a judge in Boston, Mass., to reject another lawsuit the Massachusetts’ government against Trump’s E.O. “Therefore, in light of the“plenary congressional power to make policies and rules for exclusion of aliens,” … which pursuant to8 U.S.C. § 1182(f), has been delegated to the President, the Court concludes that the [federal] government’s reasons, as provided in the EO, are facially legitimate and bona fide,” the judge declared Feb. 3.
Follow Neil Munro on Twitter @NeilMunroDC
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