Source: https://www.lawfareblog.com/legality-3617-executive-order-part-iii-establishment-clause
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 20:48:12+00:00

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On March 6, 2017, President Trump issued a new executive order on immigration that superseded an order he signed on January 27. For an in-depth discussion on the first order, please see my two-part series on Lawfare ((Part I and Part II) ) and my forthcoming essay in the Texas Law Review See Also, titled The 9th Circuit’s Contrived Comedy of Errors in Washington v. Trump.
I will analyze the new executive order in three parts. In Part I, I addressed how the new order comported with the Immigration and Nationality Act. In Part II, I assessed how the new order comports with the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process clause. This final part will analyze how the new order fares under the Establishment Clause.
This piece was written shortly before the Hawaii v. Trump decision was issued. My reaction to the decision has been embedded at the end of this post.
Two decades ago, immigration scholar Enid F. Trucios-Haynes observed in the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal that applying the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence to long-standing immigration laws “is particularly awkward.” Under either the Lemon test or the related “endorsement” test, a facially neutral law with a non-secular purpose is constitutionally suspect. A law that prefers religion over non-religion is very likely unconstitutional. A law that overtly prefers certain religious sects over others is almost certainly unconstitutional. Yet, immigration law routinely does all of the above, and neither Congress nor the courts have expressed even the slightest concern for the Establishment Clause—that is, until President Trump’s executive order.
A fitting starting point is a case many lawyers are familiar with: Rector, Etc. of Holy Trinity Church v. United States. Justice Brewer’s 1892 decision is still studied for the “familiar rule that a thing may be within the letter of the statute and yet not within the statute, because not within its spirit nor within the intention of its makers.” But the facts that gave rise to the case are far more relevant to our discussion than this canon of construction.
Congress had enacted a statute that prohibited any corporation from assisting immigrants in entering the United States to perform labor. Despite the plain text, the Holy Trinity Court concluded that that Congress did not have in mind “any purpose of staying the coming into this country of ministers of the gospel, or, indeed, of any class whose toil is that of the brain,” because “preaching” is not “labor,” as the term was commonly understood. Indeed, as a general matter, the Court found that “no purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a religious people.” The opinion cites the godly nature of Columbus’s voyage, the first charter of Virginia, the Mayflower Compact, and the Declaration of Independence. One would think that such a construction would raise Establishment Clause concerns, and that the statute should be read to avoid that outcome; indeed, when the plain text compels that result, the Court’s decision becomes even less justifiable. But such concerns were nonexistent, as the Establishment Clause lacked any teeth in 1892.
By all accounts, however, Justice Brewer had in fact ascertained Congress’s intent. Since 1952, when Congress codified the Immigration and Nationality Act, our law has afforded a “special immigrant” status to aliens that seek to enter the United States “solely for the purpose of carrying on the vocation of a minister of that religious denomination.” Here, Congress bestows a benefit exclusively based on the fact that the alien is a minister. Atheists need not apply. For those who check such things—and it is relevant under Lemon—one scholar observed that the “legislative history of the 1952 amendment to the Federal Immigration Act is replete with references to religious purpose and motivation,” referencing the role religion plays in “shaping American culture.” The purpose, and effect of this provision is unmistakable: advancing religion.
Countless BIA decisions have construed this provision; none raise even the slightest Establishment Clause doubts. For example, In the Matter of Balbin involved excessive entanglement, as the court had to determine whether, under an earlier version of the statute, the church in fact needed the minister’s services. Such a regime would be verboten under traditional Equal Protection caselaw.
This regulation is clearly framed to mirror religious structures similar to that of the Roman Catholic church, where officials take a “lifetime commitment,” and not based on other faiths where spiritual leaders may have different, less-permanent approaches to devotion. More importantly, Professor Trucios-Haynes observed, “Nontraditional religions, that are not similarly organized in comparison to religions containing nuns, monks, religious brothers, and sisters, must explain their religious doctrine.” As a result, she noted, “[t]hese organizations are subject to a far more searching inquiry by bureaucratic decisionmakers.” For other faiths, devotion need not be a lifelong commitment, in the same sense as monks or nuns. Thus, they are disadvantaged under our immigration laws. Indeed, Professor Trucios-Haynes’s study of the legislative history reveals a preference “to permit entry of members of certain religious denominations, i.e., Roman Catholic members, but to limit the entry of members of other religious denominations.” In any other context, were Congress to so nakedly prefer religion over non-religion, and Catholics over non-Catholics, the law would have already been enjoined. Yet, these provisions have remained in effect for over half a century, without raising any judicial doubts. (Indeed, recent decisions considering the regulation’s legality on other grounds did not even mention the Establishment Clause).
Though the vocation statute favors religious aliens over non-religious aliens, it is facially non-denominational. That is, on its face, the law does not prefer Catholic priests over Jewish rabbis. The same cannot be said for the so-called “Lautenberg Amendment.” During the late 1980s, as more Jews were permitted to emigrate from the Soviet Union, there was a movement afoot in the Reagan Administration to “rethink the almost automatic granting of refugee status” to these aliens. In 1989, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Bruce Morrison (D-CT) introduced a legislative response, that would become known as the Lautenberg Amendment. Section 599D of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act stated that “Aliens who are (or were) nationals and residents of the Soviet Union and who are Jews or Evangelical Christians shall be deemed” to be subject to persecution, unless there was sufficient evidence to the contrary. In other words, the law established that by virtue of a Soviet’s faith—Judaism or Evangelical Christianity—courts should presume the alien’s claim of persecution. In such cases, the burden is on the government to establish that no such persecution is present. This reverses the usual framework. Several members of Congress opposed the bill because it granted preferential treatment to Soviet Jews; but none objected that favoring Soviet Jews and Evangelicals would run afoul of the Establishment Clause. Ultimately, the Amendment passed 97-0 in the Senate, and 358-44 in the House.
As a general matter, many core aspects of refugee law raise Establishment Clause problems. For example, determinations of whether an alien faces a “well-founded fear of prosecution” based on religion unnecessarily entangles the government in deciding the contours of spiritual doctrines. The Lautenberg amendment, however, does not merely prefer claims of religious-aliens over non-religious aliens, but instead grants preferential treatment to two specific sects within the Soviet Union: Jews and Evangelicals. There is no mistaking the purpose of the law. And its effect was patent. As a result of the Amendment, the rate of applicants interviewed in Moscow that were approved for refugee status increased from 78% to 90%, raising the prospects of Jews and Evangelicals to seek refugee status. This policy is facially invalid under the Lemon test. Yet, I could not locate even the slightest suggestion that the Lautenberg Amendment was unconstitutional.
If you read it quickly, you may gloss over the fact that there is a critical element missing: religion. That choice was deliberate. It is perfectly permissible under the statute to discriminate on the basis of religion when deciding whether to issue immigrant visas. (Non-immigrant visas can be restricted based on nationality, or any other basis for that matter).
I reiterate that this conclusion is tentative. No court has ever confronted this question. This uninterrupted, uncontroverted practice should at least give courts pause before extending Lemon to this context over which Congress has plenary power, and the President has heightened concerns over foreign affairs. Washington v. Trump and Aziz v. Trump simply assumed the Establishment Clause applied with full force to the executive order.
It is not surprising that such Establishment Clause challenges have not arisen. Imagine a Buddhist living in the Soviet Union in 1990 challenged the Lautenberg Amendment as an unconstitutional establishment, which deprived him of the opportunity to receive one of the statutorily-limited number of refugee slots. Such a suit would have been tossed out of court. But, at bottom, this is the gravamen of the latest round of litigation in Washington v. Trump.
If my tentative conclusion is correct, then I would be very hesitant to apply the Lemon or endorsement test to the executive order, as it would put in doubt countless provisions of the INA that grants preferential treatment for religious aliens, and at that, aliens of certain religious sects. Granted, I am not a fan of Lemon, as I noted in one of my first published articles. I would far prefer a test premised on coercion, rather than endorsement. In that case, the executive order would be unassailable. I will assume in the remainder of the post that the Lemon test applies to immigration law.
McCreary County v. ACLU applied a purposivist approach to the Establishment Clause and instructs lower courts to look behind a facially neutral policy to ascertain religious pretext. In that case, the Court studied the legislative history of a series of Ten Commandments displays to find a preference for promoting Christianity. In other cases, the court has looked even further for improper motive, focusing on statements that were extraneous to the policy, or even less-reliable, post-enactment legislative history.
In Epperson v. Arkansas, the Court cited an advertisement placed in a newspaper in support of the law forbidding the teaching of evolution in public schools. In Stone v. Graham, the Court invalidated a Kentucky law that required posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools. The Court offered no explanation as to why there was a forbidden purpose, stating perfunctorily, “the pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature.” The Court pronounced that “no legislative recitation of a supposed secular purpose can blind [them] to the fact” that the Ten Commandments are a religious symbol. (The Court’s later decision in Van Orden v. Perry is much to the contrary).
In Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, the Supreme Court held that a student-led, student-initiated prayer before high school football games violated the First Amendment and rejected the government’s proffered secular purpose. Here too, the Court cited post-enactment legislative history. In Wallace v. Jaffree, the Court struck down a law requiring a moment of silence in public schools, concluding that it lacked a clearly secular purpose. Unlike Epperson and Stone, where the Court did not even attempt to analyze legislative history, Justice Stevens devoted several pages of Jaffree to examining a detailed history of the enactment of the statute. Alas, much of it was post-enactment legislative history from a single member.
A different framework, however, applies when discerning the purpose of the unitary executive. Indeed, this is the basis of the off-cited but seldom analyzed dictum from United States v. Curtiss-Wright. When the President speaks, he speaks with one voice as the “sole organ” of the executive branch. (This principle is why he has the authority to supervise the social media accounts of his agencies).
Over the past few years, I’ve maintained that courts should consider the President’s statements to demonstrate whether he is faithfully executing the laws. Usually, courts listen to the “sole organ” speak through the form of general policy statements issued by an executive branch agency, or even developed by the Justice Department during the course of litigation. Seldom do we see such specific reflections from the Commander in Chief himself. To this end, I think it is possible to ascertain the President’s purpose, whether under the Take Care Clause or under the Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence. Congress is a they, but the President is a he. As a result, President Trump’s statements are certainly fair game for an Establishment Clause analysis.
The President’s initial January 27, 2017 executive order made several overt references to religion. First, the order stated that “the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including ‘honor’ killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own).” Though this statement does not reference any particular religion, the notion of “honor” killings is usually associated with Islam. Second, the order stated that the Secretary of States should “prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality.” (Query for a moment how this provision is distinguishable from the Lautenberg Amendment, which expressly gave preferential treatment to refugee claims from Soviet Jews, because of their religious-minority status). Third, during the “temporary suspension,” the Secretary can still choose to admit an alien who “is a religious minority in his country of nationality facing religious persecution.” (Likewise, this provision is apiece with the Lautenberg Amendment.) Fourth, the order asked the Secretary of State to submit a report “regarding prioritization of claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution.” (A fifth possible ground concerning the selection of the seven predominantly-Muslim nations will be addressed later in this post).
Executive Order 13769 did not provide a basis for discriminating for or against members of any particular religion. While that order allowed for prioritization of refugee claims from members of persecuted religious minority groups, that priority applied to refugees from every nation, including those in which Islam is a minority religion, and it applied to minority sects within a religion. That order was not motivated by animus toward any religion, but was instead intended to protect the ability of religious minorities -- whoever they are and wherever they reside -- to avail themselves of the USRAP in light of their particular challenges and circumstances.
Despite the fact that the new order is facially neutral and eliminates all references to religion, many commentators have continued to view it as the proverbial fruit from the poisonous tree. That is, changes to the four corners of the document cannot remove its “forever taint” of animus. Eric Posner, Michael Dorf, Ilya Somin, and many others have made this claim. This claim is worth investigating in light of a careful study of Justice Souter’s opinion in McCreary County v. ACLU.
The Court’s most relevant statement concerning the Establishment Clause was articulated in Justice Souter’s decision in McCreary County v. ACLU. In this case, the county posted three different displays of the Ten Commandments in its courthouse. The first version was a “gold-framed cop[y] of an abridged text of the King James version of the Ten Commandments, including a citation to the Book of Exodus.” The Judge-Executive posted the display at a ceremony, joined by a local pastor, and referred to the Decalogue as a “creed of ethics.” The ACLU sough a preliminary injunction. Before the court ruled on the motion, the County “authorized a second, expanded display, by nearly identical resolutions.” Many of the county’s resolutions expressly referenced religion. Display 2.0 included the edited King James version of the Ten Commandments, alongside eight other documents, including the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence, a proclamation from Abraham Lincoln, and the Mayflower Compact. (Each document made reference to God or the Bible). The District Court soon entered a preliminary injunction, finding that the display “lack[ed] any secular purpose” under the Lemon test.
But scrutinizing purpose does make practical sense, as in Establishment Clause analysis, where an understanding of official objective emerges from readily discoverable fact, without any judicial psychoanalysis of a drafter’s heart of hearts. Wallace (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment). The eyes that look to purpose belong to an “‘objective observer,’” one who takes account of the traditional external signs that show up in the “‘text, legislative history, and implementation of the statute,’” or comparable official act. Santa Fe (quoting Wallace) (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment); see also Edwards v. Aguillard (enquiry looks to “plain meaning of the statute’s words, enlightened by their context and the contemporaneous legislative history [and] the historical context of the statute, ... and the specific sequence of events leading to [its] passage”). There is, then, nothing hinting at an unpredictable or disingenuous exercise when a court enquires into purpose after a claim is raised under the Establishment Clause.
With that framework established, the majority considered the county’s defenses. First, the government asserted that “purpose in a case like this one should be inferred, if at all, only from the latest news about the last in a series of governmental actions, however close they may all be in time and subject.” In a now-famous line, Justice Souter countered, “But the world is not made brand new every morning, and the Counties are simply asking us to ignore perfectly probative evidence.” The objective observer must not be “absentminded,” the Court explained. Instead, he must be “presumed to be familiar with the history of the government’s actions and competent to learn what history has to show.” The opinion cited Justice O’Connor’s opinion in Wallace, which focused on the “implementation of” the government action.
With respect to the county’s second display, the juxtaposition of “the Commandments to other documents with highlighted references to God as their sole common element” underscored “an indisputable, and undisputed, showing of an impermissible purpose.” The government defended the third display by connecting the Ten Commandments with the “historical foundation of American government.” However, the Court rejected these new “statements of purpose” as a mere “litigating position,” especially in light of the fact that the county did not adopt “a new resolution or repeal . . . the old one.” Notwithstanding this purpose, the Court still found the third display to have a “sectarian spirit,” as it “quoted more of the purely religious language of the Commandments than the first two displays had done.” With that, the Court ruled for the ACLU.
The Ninth Circuit panel in Washington v. Trump addressed the Establishment Clause argument but ultimately ruled on procedural due process grounds. The leading judicial opinion focusing on this former ground was offered by Judge Brinkema (EDVA) in Aziz v. Trump. The opinion is largely premised on McCreary. Indeed, this is an apt precedent for considering the legality of President Trump’s two orders. In both cases, the government went through several iterations of a policy in response to Establishment-Clause litigation. In both cases, the government evinced various sectarian purposes. And, in both cases, the government urged the court to ignore the purpose of the policy, and disclaiming old history as “dead and buried.” Before I delve into the analysis, however, I need to take a slight fact-checking detour.
LESLEY STAHL:-- in December you tweeted, and I quote you, "Calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional."
LESLEY STAHL: -- your position.
DONALD TRUMP: -- no, I -- call it whatever you want. We'll call it territories, okay?
LESLEY STAHL: So not Muslims?
DONALD TRUMP: You know -- the Constitution -- there's nothing like it. But it doesn't necessarily give us the right to commit suicide, as a country, okay? And I'll tell you this. Call it whatever you want, change territories, but there are territories and terror states and terror nations that we're not going to allow the people to come into our country. And we're going to have a thing called "Extreme vetting." And if people want to come in, there's going to be extreme vetting. We're going to have extreme vetting. They're going to come in and we're going to know where they came from and who they are.
CHUCK TODD: The Muslim ban. I think you've pulled back from it, but you tell me.
DONALD TRUMP: We must immediately suspend immigration from any nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven vetting mechanisms have been put in place.
DONALD TRUMP: I don't think so. I actually don't think it's a rollback. In fact, you could say it's an expansion. I'm looking now at territories. People were so upset when I used the word Muslim. Oh, you can't use the word Muslim. Remember this. And I'm okay with that, because I'm talking territory instead of Muslim.
“I'm talking territory instead of Muslim.” That is, Trump established that his policy would affect certain countries, rather than a specific religion. Which one is it? Is Trump keeping the Muslim ban or abandoning it? Perhaps Trump was lying on “Meet the Press”? Perhaps he was confused on “60 Minutes”? Maybe he had a “lousy earpiece”? The fact that an Article III inquiry comes down to whether we give more weight to interviews from Chuck Todd or Lesley Stahl suggests how fraught Judge Brinkema’s analysis is.
Later in her opinion, Judge Brinkema acknowledges, “As the campaign proceeded, there were fewer references to an outright ban on Muslim immigration, with the focus switched to a ban on persons from territories that have a Muslim majority.” Wouldn’t it also be fairer to say that the President overtly abandoned the “Muslim Ban” policy, and instead focused on several nations which pose specific risks? Courts should not be in the business of parsing ambiguous and garbled statements of a notoriously-incoherent politician. Justice Scalia’s dissent in McCreary warned against “making the passing comments of every government official the subject of endless litigation.” He was right.
Judge Brinkema’s ellipses also omitted who worked on the policy. Giuliani said, “I put a commission together with Judge [and former Attorney General] Mukasey, with Congressman [and Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee] McCaul, [Representative and former Chair of the Homeland Security Committee] Pete King, whole group of other very expert lawyers on this. Judge Brinkema discounts these experts’ opinion, because “there is no evidence that this commission was privy to any national security information when developing the policy.” (How could she possibly say that about the Chair of the Homeland Security Committee?!). But in any event, this inquiry moves the goal posts. If she thought Giuliani was in fact enabling a secret-Muslim ban, then that would be true, too, of former-Attorney General Mukasey. The court’s uncharitable reading of both Trump and Giuliani is better served for a Sunday morning talk show, not a federal court.
One other statement is worth a brief mention. On January 27, 2017, President Trump was interviewed on the Christian Broadcasting Network. Host David Brody asked if “persecuted Christians” should be a priority in the refugee program. Trump answered, “Yes.” He continued, “If you were a Muslim you could come in, but if you were a Christian, it was almost impossible.” This is precisely the sentiment expressed by the Lautenberg Amendment—that minority religions that are persecuted should be a priority. Indeed, ultimately the executive order did not apply only to Christians, but to all minority-religions. On its face, in a majority Christian nation, persecuted Muslims would have received a priority. In any event, this provision was stripped from the March executive order.
The crux of Judge Brinkema’s legal analysis can be crystalized in a single sentence from her opinion: “In other words, what matters is what an “objective observer” would draw from the text of the policy, enlightened by historical context and ‘the specific sequence of events leading to’ its adoption.” One would think that her analysis would indeed begin with the “specific sequence of events leading to’ [the] adoption” of the executive order. Not quite.
No. And that's the sad part about life. Because you have fabulous Muslims. I know many Muslims and they're fabulous people. They're smart. They're industrious. They're great. Unfortunately, at this moment in time, there is a Muslim problem in the world. And by the way, and you know it and it I know it and some people don't like saying it because they think it's not politically correct.
This segment had nothing to do with immigration. Judge Brinkema used ellipses to elide the discussion of the Ground Zero mosque, and create the impression Trump was talking about immigration.
Next, the court jumped ahead nearly five years to December 2015 when then-candidate Trump called for a “for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” What was the connection between the two incidents? The “shutdown,” she wrote, was “consistent with views that the president has expressed on various occasions over the last six years.” Again, the O’Reilly Factor segment had nothing to do with immigration policy. Judge Brinkema’s not-too-subtle point—by way of the word “consistent”—is that Donald Trump is an anti-Muslim bigot. I would have much preferred that simply acknowledged her sentiment, rather than couching it in judicial garb, but this was precisely her conclusion. Why else mention the O’Reilly Factor segment which predated the executive order by nearly six years?
In holding the preliminary injunction adequately supported by evidence that the Counties’ purpose had not changed at the third stage, we do not decide that the Counties’ past actions forever taint any effort on their part to deal with the subject matter. We hold only that purpose needs to be taken seriously under the Establishment Clause and needs to be understood in light of context; an implausible claim that governmental purpose has changed should not carry the day in a court of law any more than in a head with common sense. (emphasis added).
Discounting punditry from Rudy Giuliani, and a typically-garbled statement from Trump, the court premised its opinion on the supposed fact that Trump is an anti-Muslim bigot. This conclusion will infect every Establishment Clause challenge ever brought against the President concerning Islam. Perhaps the President’s decision to use military force against a predominantly-Muslim nation could violate the Establishment Clause? (If only Justice Douglas had that tool at his disposal in Holtzman v. Schleisinger.). Nothing Trump can do would ever eliminate that taint. Nothing in McCreary stands for this limitless proposition.
The Court’s conclusion rests on the highly particular “sequence of events” leading to this specific EO and the dearth of evidence indicating a national security purpose. See McCreary, 545 U.S. at 862, 125 S.Ct. 2722. The evidence in this record focuses on the president’s statements about a “Muslim ban” and the link Giuliani established between those statements and the EO. Based on that evidence, at this preliminary of the litigation, the Court finds that the Commonwealth has established a likelihood of success on the merits.
With the new “sequence of events,” which eliminates all references to religion, and a far more narrowly tailored order, Aziz should no longer stand. McCreary County faulted the government for not rescinding the old policy. President Trump expressly repudiated the old policy. This order is in no sense “dominated” by a religious purpose. There is ample ground to uphold the new executive order, within the confines of Justice Souter’s opinion.

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