Supremes applauded for 7-2 thumping of activist judge

An immigration watchdog was pleased to witness the U.S. Supreme Court slap down a federal judge who appears to be fighting the Trump administration’s immigration policies rather than ruling on them.

The high court handed President Donald Trump another legal victory by allowing nationwide enforcement of a new rule that prevents most Central American immigrants from seeking asylum in the United States. By a 7-2 vote, the justices' order temporarily undoes a lower-court ruling that had blocked the new asylum policy in some states along the southern border.

The immigration policy denies asylum to anyone who passes through another country on the way to the U.S. without seeking protection there, arguing that true refugees seeking safety and protection – rather than economic opportunities --- would seek help in the first stable country that would accept them.  

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, says the court was “absolutely correct” to side with the president. But his bigger observation is over U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar, who defied an appeals court ruling and reinstated a nationwide injunction over the asylum ban.

“You have a single unelected judge in California, one who has been used over and over again by the advocates for open borders,” Mehlman complains, “to render decisions that they like, basically making the policies of the United States.”

The appeals court narrowed the scope of Tigar’s ruling to include only California and Arizona but Tigar ruled in favor of the ACLU and ignored the ruling, Fox News reported in a September 9 story.

Two days later, on September 11, the nation’s highest court ruled in favor of the Trump administration.

Legal cases challenging the constitutionality of Trump's order are still working their way through the courts and will eventually be decided by the Supreme Court.