Int'l Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump

• Decision Date: 15 March 2017
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. TDC–17–0361
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland
• Parties: INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE ASSISTANCE PROJECT, a project of the Urban Justice Center, Inc., on behalf of itself and its clients, HIAS, Inc., on behalf of itself and its clients, Middle East Studies Association of North America, Inc., on behalf of itself and its members, Muhammed Meteab, Paul Harrison, Ibrahim Ahmed Mohomed, John Does Nos. 1 & 3, and Jane Doe No. 2, Plaintiffs, v. Donald J. TRUMP, in his official capacity as President of the United States, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, John F. Kelly, in his official capacity as Secretary of Homeland Security, Rex W. Tillerson, in his official capacity as Secretary of State, and Michael Dempsey, in his official capacity as Acting Director of National Intelligence, Defendants.

241 F.Supp.3d 539

INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE ASSISTANCE PROJECT, a project of the Urban Justice Center, Inc., on behalf of itself and its clients, HIAS, Inc., on behalf of itself and its clients, Middle East Studies Association of North America, Inc., on behalf of itself and its members, Muhammed Meteab, Paul Harrison, Ibrahim Ahmed Mohomed, John Does Nos. 1 & 3, and Jane Doe No. 2, Plaintiffs,

v.Donald J. TRUMP, in his official capacity as President of the United States, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, John F. Kelly, in his official capacity as Secretary of Homeland Security, Rex W. Tillerson, in his official capacity as Secretary of State, and Michael Dempsey, in his official capacity as Acting Director of National Intelligence, Defendants.

Civil Action No. TDC–17–0361

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

Signed March 15, 2017

Filed March 16, 2017

David Robert Rocah, Deborah A. Jeon, Nicholas Taichi Steiner, Sonia Kumar, American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland Baltimore, MD, Justin B. Cox, Atlanta, GA, Cecillia D. Wang, Cody Wofsy, American Civil Liberties Union, San Francisco, CA, Daniel Mach, David D. Cole, Heather Lynn Weaver, ACLU Foundation, Washington, DC, Esther Sung, Karen C. Tumlin, Melissa S. Keaney, Nicholas Espiritu, Los Angeles, CA, Hina Shamsi, Hugh Handeyside, Lee Gelernt, Omar C. Jadwat, Sarah L. Mehta, American Civil Liberties Union, New York, NY, for Plaintiffs.

Arjun Garg, Daniel Stephen Garrett Schwei, Michelle Bennett, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

THEODORE D. CHUANG, United States District Judge

On March 6, 2017, President Donald J. Trump issued an Executive Order which bars, with certain exceptions, the entry to the United States of nationals of six predominantly Muslim countries, suspends the entry of refugees for 120 days, and cuts by more than half the number of refugees to be admitted to the United States in the current year. This Executive Order follows a substantially similar Executive Order that is currently the subject of multiple injunctions premised on the conclusion that it likely violates various provisions of the United States Constitution. Pending before the Court is Plaintiffs' Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order or a Preliminary Injunction, filed on March 10, 2017. At issue is whether the President's revised Executive Order, set to take effect on March 16, 2017, should likewise be halted because it violates the Constitution and federal law. For the reasons set forth below, the Motion is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.

INTRODUCTION

On January 27, 2017, President Trump issued Executive Order 13,769, " Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States" ("First Executive Order" or "First Order"), 82 Fed. Reg. 8977 (Jan. 27, 2017). On February 7, 2017, Plaintiffs filed a Complaint alleging that the First Executive Order violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, U.S. Const. amend. I ; the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, U.S. Const. amend. V ; the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"), 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101 – 1537 (2012) ; the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb to 2000bb–4 (2012) ; the Refugee Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1521 – 1524 (2012) ; and the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"), 5 U.S.C. §§ 701 – 706 (2012). On March 6, 2017, in the wake of several successful legal challenges to the First Executive Order, President Trump issued Executive Order 13,780 ("Second Executive Order" or "Second Order"), which bears the same title as the First Executive Order. 82 Fed. Reg. 13209 (Mar. 9, 2017). The Second Executive Order, by its own terms, is scheduled to go into effect and supplant the First Executive Order on March 16, 2017.

On March 10, 2017, Plaintiffs amended their Complaint to seek the invalidation of the Second Executive Order. Plaintiffs substituted certain individual plaintiffs and added an organizational plaintiff. Their causes of action remain the same. That same day, Plaintiffs filed the pending Motion, seeking to enjoin the Second Executive Order in its entirety before it takes effect. Defendants have received notice of the Motion and filed a brief in opposition to it on March 13, 2017. After Plaintiffs filed a reply brief on March 14, 2017, the Court held a hearing on the Motion on March 15, 2017. With the matter fully briefed and argued, the Court construes the Motion as a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction. The Court now issues its findings of fact and conclusions of law and rules on the Motion.¹

FINDINGS OF FACT

I. Executive Order 13,769

The stated purpose of the First Executive Order is to "protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States." 1st Order Preamble. To that end, the First Executive Order states that the United States must be "vigilant during the visa-issuance process," a process that "plays a crucial role in detecting individuals with terrorist ties and stopping them from entering the United States." 1st Order § 1. The First Executive Order therefore mandates, as relevant here, two courses of action. The first, set forth in Section 3 entitled "Suspension of Issuance of Visas and Other Immigration Benefits to Nationals of Countries of Particular Concern," invokes the President's authority under 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) to suspend for 90 days "the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens" from the countries of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen as "detrimental to the interests of the United States." 1st Order § 3(c). Each of these countries has a predominantly Muslim population, including Iraq, Iran, and Yemen which are more than 99 percent Muslim. In addition to providing certain exceptions for diplomatic travel, the provision contains exceptions on a "case-by-case basis" when such an exception is "in the national interest," a term not defined elsewhere in the Order. 1st Order § 3(g). During this 90–day period, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of State, and the Director of National Intelligence are to "immediately conduct a review to determine the information needed from any country" to assess whether an individual from that country applying for a "visa, admission, or other benefit ... is not a security or public-safety threat" and provide a report on their review to the President within 30 days of the issuance of the Order. 1st Order § 3(a)–(b).

The second course of action relates to refugees. As set out in Section 5(d), the President ordered, pursuant to § 1182(f), that "the entry of more than 50,000 refugees in fiscal year 2017 would be detrimental to the interests of the United States" and thus suspended the entry of any refugees above that figure. 1st Order § 5(d). The Order also immediately suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program ("USRAP") for 120 days and imposed an indefinite ban on the entry of refugees from Syria. The Order further required changes to the refugee screening process "to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality." 1st Order § 5(b).

The drafting process for the First Executive Order did not involve traditional interagency review by relevant departments and agencies. In particular, there was no consultation with the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, or the Department of Homeland Security. When the Order was issued in the early evening of Friday, January 27, 2017, the State Department immediately stopped conducting visa interviews of, and processing visa applications from, citizens of any of the seven banned countries. Between 60,000 and 100,000 visas have been revoked.

II. Legal Challenges to the First Executive Order

The First Executive Order prompted numerous legal challenges, including an action filed by the State of Washington and the State of Minnesota in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington based on the Due Process, Establishment, and Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution that resulted in a nationwide temporary restraining order against several sections of the First Order. On February 9, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, construing the order as a preliminary injunction, upheld the entry of the injunction. Washington v. Trump, 847 F.3d 1151, 1165–66 (9th Cir. 2017). Although it did not reach the Establishment Clause claim, the Ninth Circuit noted that the asserted claim raised "serious allegations" and presented "significant constitutional questions." Id. at 1168. On February 13, 2017, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found that plaintiffs had shown a likelihood of success on the merits of an Establishment Clause claim and issued an injunction against enforcement of Section 3(c) of the First Executive Order as to Virginia residents or students enrolled a Virginia state educational institution. Aziz v. Trump, 234 F.Supp.3d 724, No.1:17–cv–116, 2017 WL 580855 (E.D. Va. Feb. 13, 2017). These injunctions remain in effect.

III. Executive Order 13,780

On March 6, 2017, President Trump issued a revised Executive Order, to become effective on March 16, 2017, at which point the First Executive Order will be revoked. 2d Order §§ 13, 14. The Second Executive Order reinstates the 90–day ban on travel for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen ("the Designated Countries"), but removes Iraq from the list based on its recent efforts to enhance its travel documentation procedures and ongoing cooperation between Iraq and the United States in fighting ISIS. The scope of the ban, however, was narrowed expressly to respond to "judicial concerns." 2d Order § (1)(i...