A Harvard classmate of the ex- “president” and nominated to the court by the ex- “president,” Hawaii U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson was the one who ruled against President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban on terrorist sponsoring nations. The ex- “president” reportedly made an unexpected trip to Honolulu two days before Watson ruled, causing widespread speculation of a backroom deal.
Watson’s ruling postulates that Hawaiian universities and tourism overrules security concerns. Pearl Harbor victims might have something to say about that. Watson also infers that Muslim clerics have the Constitutional right to bring anyone they want into the U.S., whether they have visas or not. But there is more.
Central to Watson’s ruling was consideration to the plaintiff, who claimed, discrimination to his family in violation of both the Constitution and the INA, denying them their right among other things “to associate with family members overseas on the basis of their religion and national origin.”
The plaintiff is Dr. Ismail Elshikh, a local Hawaiian Imam whose mother is a Syrian national “without a visa, who last visited the family in Hawaii in 2005.” She would be barred from entering the US unless granted a waiver. Further, Watson said the state of Hawaii’s universities would “suffer monetary damages and intangible harms” and the state would lose revenue “due to a decline in tourism” because of the executive order.
Watson admitted that Trump’s executive order contains no express reference to any religion, nor does it “contain any term or phrase that can be reasonably characterized as having a religious origin or connotation.” But Watson says, “The illogic of the Government’s contentions is palpable. The notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed.”
The judge also cited instances when candidate Trump said he would ban Muslims until they were fully vetted. So the judge included in his decision to issue a restraining order on the ban because Trump, before he was elected, referred to the action as a Muslim ban.
Watson contends by his statements that non-U.S. citizens living abroad have U.S. Constitutional rights. Overall, he ignored the law. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 specifically states in Section 212:
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 non-immigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
The Lord said in Luke 16:10, “…he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.”
Judge Watson has undermined the law and the Constitution. He should be removed from his position.
Bill Wilson
www.dailyjot.com