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Hawaii v. Trump: Defending Against Travel Ban’s Assault on “Our Nation’s Most Basic Commitments”
Posted on Dec 08 2017
On December 6, the Ninth Circuit heard arguments in Hawaii v. Trump, a case challenging the latest version of the Trump travel ban/Muslim ban. You can listen to the entire argument on C-Span. Attorney Neal Katyal, representing travel ban opponents, gave a particularly eloquent, short summation, which begins around 58:50 in the C-Span video:
“Tomorrow will have been two years to the day since Donald Trump called for a complete and total shutdown of all Muslim immigration to the United States.
“It will also be another sad anniversary, 76 years since the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor led not only to an assault on our nation’s security but also an assault on its most basic commitments. The walls of this very courthouse where Gordon Hirabayashi was tried bear witness to that tragedy.
“What the government did then in the name of national security did not make us stronger. It betrayed our values. It betrayed our nation’s soul and rather than defend those values, the court stood by then.
“Twice now, this court, reflecting the dissents in those cases, not the majority, has made sure not to repeat that mistake and to avoid the nightmare of Judge Gould’s hypothetical of a federal court system that is powerless.
“This court has twice asserted its vital role as guardians of the law, and rejected the president’s attempt to flout our constitution, to flout our laws. We ask that this court do so again.”