STRUCK DOWN

Citing Trump’s Own Tweets, Ninth Circuit Blocks Travel Ban Again

The president’s social-media activity helped bury his own proposed policy.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday denied a second appeal to lift an injunction against President Trump’s revised travel ban. The court ruled to continue blocking the travel ban, following a similar ruling from an appeals court in the Fourth Circuit last month. Trump's ban “exceeded the scope of the authority delegated to him by Congress” to control immigration, the three Ninth Circuit Court judges ruled. “Immigration, even for the President, is not a one-person show.” The ruling also cites Trump’s recent tweets in its case against his ban. "Indeed, the President recently confirmed his assessment that it is the ‘countries’ that are inherently dangerous, rather than the 180 million individual nationals of those countries who are barred from entry under the President’s ‘travel ban,’” the court wrote, citing one of Trump’s tweets from June 5, 2017: “That’s right, we need a TRAVEL BAN for certain DANGEROUS countries, not some politically correct term that won't help us protect our people!” the quoted tweet read. The court also included a link to a May statement by the White House that confirmed that all of Trump’s tweets are “considered official statements by the President of the United States.”