Will the Courts Find Trump's Ban Unconstitutional?
President Trump can perhaps be forgiven for not understanding the quirks of federal District Court jurisdiction. Saturday he Tweeted, “Why aren't the lawyers looking at and using the Federal Court decision in Boston, which is at conflict with ridiculous lift ban decision?”
The elementary reason is this: one judge—Judge Nathaniel Gorton of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts––refused to enter an injunction. His order doesn’t have any legal effect. It did not even resolve the claims of the six plaintiffs in front of it, simply said that they were not entitled to an emergency order halting Trump’s travel-ban order before a trial.
The other, “so-called Judge” James L. Robart of the Western District of Washington, did issue an order—a nationwide “temporary restraining order” (TRO) that instructs Trump and the Departments of State and Homeland Security to stop immediately enforcing the travel-ban order.
