AJC Brief Asks Supreme Court to Nullify Presidential Proclamation Banning Immigrants

In an amicus brief, AJC is calling for United States Supreme Court affirmation of a lower court’s ruling that President Trump’s “Proclamation” barring immigrants from nine countries is invalid.

“As the Ninth Circuit correctly recognized, the Proclamation, like the executive orders that preceded it, once again conflicts with the Immigration and Nationality Act’s prohibition on nationality-based discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas,” states the brief. AJC filed the brief in support of respondents in the case of President Donald J. Trump v. State of Hawaii.

AJC, from its founding in 1906, sought the repeal of the national origins immigration system. With AJC’s support, the INA was adopted by Congress and signed by the president in 1965. “This palpable shift repudiated years of restrictive immigration policy based on discrimination, intolerance, and fear,” states the AJC brief. “This reform repudiated wholesale discriminatory immigration policies motivated by racial and religious animus.”

The Court should recognize that individuals, such as the respondents in the current case, “who have been directly harmed by the President’s unilateral, unlawful action” are entitled to pursue judicial recourse,” AJC argues. The President’s authority to set immigration policy “is not unlimited.”

The Proclamation, issued in December, “cannot withstand even minimal judicial scrutiny because it conflicts with the INA’s prohibition on nationality-based discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas,” states the brief.

The AJC brief reviews a century of U.S. immigration laws, which until the INA constituted a series of highly restrictive measures that barred certain groups from entering the U.S. “The Proclamation is only the most recent instance of racism, nationalism, and intolerance that are throughout the history of U.S. immigration policy and law,” states the brief.

AJC General Counsel Marc Stern said “accepting immigrants and refugees in times of need has long be a core tenet of the fundamental values and national identity of the United States. Immigration has proved to confer enormous benefits on U.S. foreign policy, national security, and the economy.”

The AJC brief was prepared by Adam S. Lurie, Vijaya R. Palaniswamy, Caitlin K. Potratz, John W. Akin, and Stephen A. Cobb of Linklaters LLP in Washington, D.C.