[cookiecaper]

And what's the Constitutional argument that the President is not allowed to issue EOs of this type? What's the argument that Mr. Trump's EO specifically violates the Constitution?

Law enforcement is not the judiciary. They are part of the the executive branch. Their job is to enforce the law under the direction of the chief executive, at the moment President Trump, who was clearly installed by Constitutional means.

Unless Ms. Yates can highlight a clear and present Constitutional violation that justifies disregarding the also-Constitutional obligation to uphold and respect the peoples' elected chief executive, there's simply nothing to go on here.

[throwaway5752]

Perhaps you can educate us, then, when the executive branch gained the power to create law in the form of executive orders?

Thought experiment: if Obama had issued an EO stating that his interpretation of the 2nd amendment referred only to state militias, and as a result he was proceeding to forcibly confiscated all privately owned firearms, would that be constitutional?

[cookiecaper]

>Perhaps you can educate us, then, when the executive branch gained the power to create law in the form of executive orders?

The Wikipedia article looks like a pretty good general overview. While it is true that EOs as such are not explicitly accommodated by the Constitution, EO-equivalents with the force of law have been enacted by presidents from George Washington onward. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order . If you want more information, please consult Google. EOs are not new.

>Thought experiment: if Obama had issued an EO stating that his interpretation of the 2nd amendment referred only to state militias, and as a result he was proceeding to forcibly confiscated all privately owned firearms, would that be constitutional?

Trump is not re-interpreting the Constitution via EO. He is not overriding binding precedent from SCOTUS by EO (only Congress can do that, and sometimes it requires a Constitutional amendment). He is not running a national confiscation program by EO (though FDR did do this when he used EOs to make it illegal for Americans to own gold) [0].

He is doing something that is considered well within presidential power -- directing the Department of Homeland Security in its duty to vet and screen potential entrants to the United States. Foreign nationals have no right, implicit or explicit, to enter the United States.

Border control is a universally recognized duty that every country not only acknowledges, but actively enforces (and many of our first-world peers are much more aggressive than us). Without such screening, borders are irrelevant. Within U.S. law specifically, it's undisputed that such matters are under the DHS's purview, and that the DHS is under the executive branch's purview.

It seems, therefore, that an EO directing the DHS in these duties would be completely logical, right? President Obama issued several addressing the same fundamental types of issues, though his EOs generally liberalized migration policies rather than tightening them. Why is it legal for Obama to give orders of this nature, but not Trump?

I'm not a lawyer and I don't know if there are specific statutory details imposed upon the DHS in its screening process, but it doesn't appear obvious to anyone that anything about Trump's EO conflicts with any existing law. Even Ms. Yates is unable to elucidate the nature of her purported legal argument.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

[throwaway5752]

What are the legal rights of green card holders, then? Was the EO consistent with existing US law?

[cookiecaper]

I'm not an immigration lawyer and I don't know. Does the AG normally deny the president access to the DoJ based on an unspecified, ethereal debate over the potential conflict behind a few statutes?

People are claiming that she had a constitutional obligation to do this which superseded her other constitutional obligation to serve the duly-elected chief executive. Do you contend that any potential statutory conflict rises to that level? If so, it would appear that the AG can only act on laws that had been fully adjudicated and for which there is currently no controversy or unsettled questions of law.

Remember, this is not about prosecutorial discretion; this is the acting AG denying the president access to resources that would typically be available to present his case to the judiciary, whose actual job is to make these determinations.

You seem to be radically redefining the role of the AG/DoJ.

[throwaway5752]

Are you sure you understand the history, legally defined role, and traditions of the AG well enough to say, "You seem to be radically redefining the role of the AG/DoJ." to me? That's an awfully strong statement.

Green card holders legally well defined rights with strong precedent. I would personally research where those are defined and how they were affected by the original EA if I wanted to understand the full context of the former EA's actions.

[cookiecaper]

>Are you sure you understand the history, legally defined role, and traditions of the AG well enough to say, "You seem to be radically redefining the role of the AG/DoJ." to me? That's an awfully strong statement.

No.

[mordant]

President Trump is merely exercising his clearly-delineated powers as defined in Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

You really should bone up on the law if you're going to start trying to make arguments about what's legal and what isn't, in a given context.

[ubernostrum]

Yes, you really should bone up on the law:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13529036