[Bilge_Rat]

now back to the debate, another good article laying out the reasons why the travel ban is legal:

Robart rejected that position outright. Later, in its emergency brief filed Saturday night with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the government argued that a U.S. District Court judge has no legal right to stop a presidential action in which the president exercised his own constitutional power to conduct foreign policy, as well as power delegated by him to Congress in the area of immigration. The political branches of government have plenary authority over those areas, the government argued, citing cases from 1950, 1952, and 1999:

1. Judicial second-guessing of the president's determination that a temporary suspension of entry of certain classes of aliens was necessary at this time to protect national security would constitute an impermissible intrusion on the political branches' plenary constitutional authority over foreign affairs, national security, and immigration. See, e.g., Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 588-89 (1952) ("[A]ny policy toward aliens is vitally and intricately interwoven with contemporaneous policies in regard to the conduct of foreign relations, the war power, and the maintenance of a republican form of government."). "it is not within the province of any court, unless expressly authorized by law, to review the determination of the political branch of the Government to exclude a given alien." Knauff, 338 U.S. at 543; see also INS v. Aguirre-Aguirre, 526 U.S. 415, 425 (1999).

The government brief supported the president's decision on both legal and constitutional grounds, starting with the law. And that starts with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which states:

1. 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.

Quoting cases from 2016 and 1977, the Justice Department argued that, specifically in the context of immigration, "the Supreme Court has 'long recognized the power to expel or exclude aliens as a fundamental sovereign attribute exercised by the government's political departments largely immune from judicial control.'" "When Congress delegates this plenary power to the executive, the executive's decisions are likewise generally shielded from administrative or judicial review."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2613988