On Friday, Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order applying a wave of restrictions on citizens from seven Muslim countries entering the United States. Since then, America’s border crossings have been chaotic as immigration officials and federal courts have tussled over the exact meaning of the order. Syrian refugees have also been indefinitely banned, current visas have been revoked and, perhaps most confusingly, the green cards of permanent residents from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen are subject to scrutiny.
While the United States has the right to change its immigration policy as it wishes, the rights of green-card holders or lawful permanent residents have constitutional protection. The fifth amendment of the US constitution states that the federal government doesn’t have the right to deprive a citizen “of life, liberty or property without due process of law”. This amendment derives from English common law, yet unlike that system, America doesn’t explicitly establish this right, known as habeas corpus, but prevents the federal government from restricting it.
Many of the court battles challenging Mr Trump’s executive order across America have argued that the sudden revocation of green cards without any trial amounts to the deprivation of due process afforded to them under the constitution.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), after reviewing the legal foundation of the order, established that green-card holders should be exempt from the restrictions. Surprisingly, the White House specifically overruled the DHS decision on green-card holders and included them in the ban before backing down later and leaving the admittance of green-card holders to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
Regardless of the validity – or the need for such a far-reaching travel ban – the execution of this order has been a disaster for the Trump White House. All evidence indicates that necessary branches of the immigration services were not properly informed about the nature of the ban, nor were America’s allies around the world. Given the shoddy implementation of this historic order, it is no wonder that there is so much confusion at America’s airports as to who can enter the US and who can’t under the new rules. It also appears that, at least for green-card holders, Mr Trump’s actions are outside the parameters set by the US constitution.
