Washington State Alleges It’s Harmed by President’s Executive Order Travel Ban

By Roger J. Katz, Attorney at Law and Stephen L. D’Andrilli ~ Part 4

Crybabys College Snowflakes
Washington State Alleges It’s Harmed by President’s Executive Order Travel Ban
Arbalest Quarrel
Arbalest Quarrel

New York, NY  -(Ammoland.com)-  The State of Washington alleges that the President’s Executive Order harms the state in the following ways:

“Washington’s interest in protecting the health, safety, and well-being of its residents, including protecting its residents from harms to their physical or economic health, is a quasi-sovereign interest.

Washington also has an interest in ensuring that its residents are not excluded from the benefits that flow from participation in the federal system, including the rights and privileges provided by the U.S. Constitution and federal law.

Washington’s interest in preventing and remedying injuries to the public’s health, safety, and well-being extends to all of Washington’s residents, including individuals who suffer indirect injuries and members of the general public.

Immigration is an important economic driver in Washington. Many workers in Washington’s technology industry are immigrants, and many of those immigrant workers are from Muslim-majority countries.

Many companies in Washington are dependent on foreign workers to operate and grow their businesses.

The technology industry relies heavily on the H-1B visa program, through which highly skilled workers like software engineers are permitted to work in the United States. Washington ranks ninth in the U.S. by number of applications for high-tech visas.

Microsoft, a corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, is the State’s top employer of H-1B visa holders and employs nearly 5,000 people through the program. Other Washington-based companies, including Amazon, Expedia, and Starbucks, employ thousands of H-1B visa holders.
  
Washington-based companies, including Amazon, Expedia, and Starbucks, employ thousands.

The market for highly skilled workers and leaders in the technology industry is extremely competitive. Changes to U.S. immigration policy that restrict the flow of people may inhibit these companies’ ability to adequately staff their research and development efforts and recruit talent from overseas. If recruiting efforts are less successful, these companies’ abilities to develop and deliver successful products and services may be adversely affected.

Microsoft’s U.S. workforce is heavily dependent on immigrants and guest workers. At least 76 employees at Microsoft are citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, or Yemen and hold U.S. temporary work visas.

There may be other employees with permanent-resident status or green cards. These employees may be banned from re-entering the U.S. if they travel overseas or to the company’s offices in Vancouver, British Columbia.”

The State thereupon asks, inter alia, for the Court to enjoin the Defendants, Donald Trump, President of the United States, and John Kelly, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, from implementing the Order. This means the State requests the U.S. District Court to issue its own Order preventing the President from exercising the President’s duty to faithfully execute the laws of the U.S., prior to an adversarial proceeding that would give the President and the Secretary of DHS an opportunity to be heard in open Court.

The district court should never have issued a TRO, enjoining the U.S. President from carrying out his executive order that was designed merely and only to protect this Nation and the American public from real harm posed by those individuals entering this country from several named countries that harbor terrorists.

The U.S. District Court should have summarily denied issuance of an injunction. Why? Injunctions are extraordinary remedies.

Courts generally frown on issuing injunctions because injunctions amount to ex parte action. That means a Court renders an injunction prohibiting a Party against whom the injunction is issued from engaging in a particular action. The Court that issued an injunction is operating on the say-so of one party without bothering to hear from the other party against whom the injunction is issued. That is not how our legal system is meant to function. Our system is an adversarial system of justice. This means that each Party to a lawsuit is promised an opportunity to be heard, to present evidence in his or her behalf, and to have an opportunity to challenge the veracity of the allegations made against that Party. When a Court issues an injunction on the allegations proffered by one Party before the other Party has had an opportunity to be heard, the adversarial system of justice is dispensed with, and justice is denied the Party whose rebuttal arguments are never heard. This is bad enough where individuals stand to lose much in the way of their individual rights under the law.

It is absolute insanity where, as here, the entire Nation and its citizens are placed at risk due to the action of one judge, operating out of one Court who orders that his injunction be given nationwide effect.

What Is The Legal Mechanism For Issuing A Preliminary Injunction?

Anti Trump Judges of The Nutty 9th
Anti Trump Judges of The Nutty 9th

In the Ninth Circuit, A Court will issue an injunction—in the instant cast—the most extraordinary injunction—a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO)—when the Court is satisfied: one, that a Plaintiff is likely to suffer irreparable harm if the injunction isn’t issued immediately, and, two, the Party that seeks an injunction is likely to win on the merits, and, three, the equities tip in favor of the Party seeking an injunction, and if, four, issuance of an injunction is in the public interest.

All four factors must be present. But, looking at just one factor here, namely, that Plaintiffs here, the State of Washington and the State of Minnesota, will, as the Court has determined, be irreparably harmed if the Court does not immediately prevent implementation of the U.S. President’s Order, the Complaint is devoid of anything concrete that so much as suggests the States would suffer irreparable harm if the Court does not enjoin the U.S. President and DHS from implementing the Executive Order. Yet, the District Court itself acknowledged, in Washington v. Trump, 2:17-cv-00141 (W.D. Wash. Feb. 3, 2017) that a preliminary injunction—of which the TRO is one type—is an extraordinary remedy that may only be awarded upon a clear showing that a Plaintiff is entitled to such relief, prior to a full-blown trial on the merits.

But where in the Court’s Opinion ordering a TRO, in the context of the allegations of the Complaint, is there any indication that the Plaintiff would be irreparably harmed if the TRO isn’t issued?

There isn’t any and that is reason enough for the Court to refrain from issuing a TRO.

Then, too, there is nothing in the Court Opinion to buttress the Court’s finding that the State of Washington is likely to win the case on the merits. Moreover, the idea that the equities tip in favor of the Plaintiff is absurd on its face. How can one State possibly argue, with a straight face no less, that its claimed economic interests—not so much its own but that of a private Company, namely and especially that of the technology Company Microsoft—and that its claimed interest in protecting the Constitutional rights of individuals, who are not even citizens of the United States, and its claim of a public interest that is purportedly harmed by the U.S. President’s Executive Order, are all greater than the concern the President of the United States has for the security of the Nation and for the life and safety and well-being of the citizens of this Nation as a whole, thereby warranting, according to the U.S. District Court Judge, the awarding of an injunction, enjoining the U.S. President from carrying out his duties, under Article II of the Constitution, on behalf of this Nation and on behalf of its People?

We look at the President’s Emergency Motion to the Ninth Circuit to Stay the lower U.S. District Court’s enjoining of the President’s January 27, 2017 Executive Order in Part 5 of this series.

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Reno

If the companies here hired american workers instead of importing all of them there would be far fewer american’s without jobs. Most of the large companies here have very large foreign work forces.

Dennis Degnan

It wasn’t that long ago that we could escort our friends and family up the the boarding ramp of an airlines to say our goodbyes before departure. Times have changed. We now have to contend with TSA security stops. Friends and family are no longer permitted to even approach boarding areas. We all would like to still enjoy the free travel in the airports but current climate prevents us of opportunities we once enjoyed. This my be an overly simplified analogy of our national emigration to ensure the safety of our citizens over the compassion of those who wish to… Read more »

TruthtoShmos

Everyone who pays taxes is paying for this dysfunctional dystopian Trump so-called presidency. The DECISION of the JUDGE (a REPUBLICAN APPOINTEE) is your CONSTITUTION in ACTION. The so-called “President’s” so-called “order” could have been drafted properly but, like so many things he does, was INCOMPETENTLY EXECUTED and rightfully blocked by the Court. This is government working properly, for once, but I am sure it will not last under Trump. You so-called Patriots don’t really care about process or rights, just authoritarian BS.

Tionico

I live in Washington and I AM HARMED by the reduced national security we will now experience BECAUSE of this restraining order….. I want ALL who enter this country to live to be carefully vetted… like the hundreds of my ancestors who came here from other nations, some as far back as 1610, and, for all those generations, have become integrated productive prosperous AMERICAN citizens, furthering this nation along in its propserity. The TRO issued by this judge puts me at substantial risk due to the increased likelihood of nefarious individuals being admitted to take up residence in MY part… Read more »

tomcat

Are there not any American Citizens that are smart enough to do these jobs? Oh I forgot, the people from these third world countries will work cheaper than Americans and we wouldn’t want the billionaires that own these companies to suffer any.

Tionico

Silly Boy, blame it all on the chimeral “billionaires that own these companies”. Like Billie the Gates? No American based companies know the value of the skillset they seek, and pay accordingly. If anything, outfits like Microsoft and Boeing pay well above typical wages in order to get and keep the best out there. And don’t forget, either, both federal and state level governments have established minimum wage standards, so NO ONE will be working for less than that. One other minor detail to consider: evaluate the seven nations on that list, and tell me the likelihood that massive numbers… Read more »

Larry Brickey

Horse shit. The way the order way written was clearly an infringement on the legal status of green card holders. It just needs a rewrite.

Tionico

interesting.. others who read the same order find the language clearly indicating Green Card Holders are NOT a part of this EO and will not be affected. But yes, a rewrite to make that so crystal clear even politicans and judges can see to the bottom of it is in order… and I’ve read the present order will be rescinded and a new one released this next week. People also forget that, back in 2012, Obama made an EO that named these same seven nations, and went a lot further in its scope, and specifically INCLUDED by name those with… Read more »

Webfoot Logger

It seems to me that this is partially resulting from the absurd decision in Kelo V. New London, when the US Supreme Court ruled that a government stealing a person’s property and giving it to a favored third party is legal if the state can show that the third party will probably pay higher taxes than the real owner.

It shows the same twisted logic and criminal disregard for justice.