FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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US Supreme Court gives bigotry a leg up

US Supreme Court gives bigotry a leg up

President Trump crows as his revamped travel ban is muscled into place

United States President Donald Trump’s travel ban on citizens from certain Muslim countries gained legal traction at the Supreme Court on Monday after months of objections from lower courts on the grounds that the policy was unconstitutional. Lawyers from both sides of the political spectrum are expected in the autumn to argue the merits of Trump’s executive order banning citizens of six Muslim-majority countries and suspending the admission of refugees from anywhere in the world.
By even being willing to review Trump’s controversial order, the Supreme Court was striking a compromise. And that’s all Trump needed to shamelessly boast about his advances.
For the time being, a constrained version of the executive order is allowed to take effect. This means that foreigners “who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States” will be turned away at the border. Some of the world’s most desperate refugees – from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – will be affected. For the immediate future, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas anticipates countless lawsuits filed in an effort to determine what constitutes that “bona fide relationship”.
Even before coming to power, Trump argued passionately that a travel ban was needed for the sake of national security. That notion’s constitutionality was never even considered. The Supreme Court’s latest move at least challenges the rationale being touted by the Trump administration in arguing for the ban. That effort will now come under closer scrutiny. Trump talked about the urgent need for the ban, insisting his nation’s security could not wait. And yet his administration let more than 100 days pass once the executive order was revamped. Clearly the motivation was not some urgent need, but rather a matter of honouring campaign promises.
Trump exploited the electorate’s fears of and disdain for immigrants and succeeded in his ambitions. Now he has to keep his promises, but he’s encountered a mechanism built into American government that prevents con artists like him from following through on such mercenary exploitation.
The proposed ban, in the final analysis, is ludicrous. No citizen of any of the six targeted countries has ever staged a significant attack in the US. On the other hand, at least 15 of the 19 terrorists behind the 9/11 atrocity that left 3,000 Americans dead came from Saudi Arabia. Trump demonstrated on his visit this month to that country – a recognised sponsor of terrorism – just how warm 
US-Saudi relations are. By the same token, Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 mastermind, was living in Pakistan, close to a military academy, until being tracked down and killed. Trump must surely wonder how that came to be.
If anything, his proposed ban is actually an insult to gullible Americans. His die-hard supporters might not care which countries are affected because, in their eyes perhaps, all Muslims are the same. If Trump can bar Muslims from even six countries, they reason, it’s a good start. Trump and his bigoted backers embrace a sad and twisted logic, 
failing all the while to realise how much American foreign-policy 
blunders contributed to the ruination of the Middle East and the immigration crisis that ensued.
In the end, the ones paying the price for those mistakes are the ordinary citizens of the countries where the US meddled most thoughtlessly.

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