The 1st full term of the Supreme Court in the Trump era is wrapping up with a lawsuit that epitomizes the nature of the person occupying the Oval Office. Trump says butt out because, he feels he can exclude whomever he wants in order to 'protect the country from attack,' and no judge may second-guess him. That’s an astonishing claim of unchecked executive authority. It also contradicts the structure of federal immigration law, which is the province of Congress. No one is saying that the president is powerless to protect the nation from attack, but he must do so without violating the law or the Constitution. His latest proclamation functions as little more than legal backfill “to legitimize a presidential command that was born of animus, persists in animus, and seeks to make animus the law of the land,” as a supporting brief says.
At www.nytimes.com
