Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/17-965_h315.pdf
Page Number: 78.0

14 

TRUMP v. HAWAII 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

(slip op., at 5).  The extent to which Mandel and Din apply 
at all to this case is unsettled, and there is good reason to
think  they  do  not.5   Indeed,  even  the  Government  agreed
at  oral  argument  that  where  the  Court  confronts  a  situa­
tion involving “all kinds of denigrating comments about” a
particular  religion  and  a  subsequent  policy  that  is  de­
signed  with  the  purpose  of  disfavoring  that  religion  but 
that “dot[s] all the i’s and . . . cross[es] all the t’s,” Mandel 
would  not  “pu[t]  an  end  to  judicial  review  of  that  set  of
facts.”  Tr. of Oral Arg. 16. 

In light of the Government’s suggestion “that it may be
appropriate  here  for  the  inquiry  to  extend  beyond  the
facial neutrality of the order,” the majority rightly declines 
—————— 

5 Mandel  and  Din  are  readily  distinguishable  from  this  case  for  a 

number  of  reasons.  First,  Mandel  and  Din  each  involved  a  constitu­
tional  challenge  to  an  Executive  Branch  decision  to  exclude  a  single
foreign  national  under  a  specific  statutory  ground  of  inadmissibility. 
Mandel, 408 U. S., at 767; Din, 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 1).  Here, 
by contrast, President Trump is not exercising his discretionary author­
ity  to  determine  the  admission  or  exclusion  of  a  particular  foreign 
national.  He  promulgated  an  executive  order  affecting  millions  of
individuals  on  a  categorical  basis.    Second,  Mandel  and  Din  did  not 
purport to establish the framework for adjudicating cases (like this one)
involving claims that the Executive Branch violated the Establishment 
Clause  by  acting  pursuant  to  an  unconstitutional  purpose.    Applying 
Mandel’s narrow standard of review to such a claim would run contrary
to  this  Court’s  repeated  admonition  that  “[f ]acial  neutrality  is  not 
determinative”  in  the  Establishment  Clause  context.    Lukumi,  508 
U. S.,  at  534.    Likewise,  the  majority’s  passing  invocation  of  Fiallo  v. 
Bell,  430  U. S.  787  (1977),  is  misplaced.    Fiallo,  unlike  this  case,  ad­
dressed a constitutional challenge to a statute enacted by Congress, not 
an  order  of  the  President.  Id.,  at  791.  Fiallo’s  application  of  Mandel 
says little about whether Mandel’s narrow standard of review applies to
the  unilateral  executive  proclamation  promulgated  under  the  circum­
stances  of  this  case.  Finally,  even  assuming  that  Mandel  and  Din 
apply here, they would not preclude us from looking behind the face of
the Proclamation because plaintiffs have made “an affirmative showing
of bad faith,” Din, 576 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 5), by the President who,
among other things, instructed his subordinates to find a “lega[l]” way
to enact a Muslim ban, App. 125; see supra, at 4–10.