Where is Stephen Miller when you need him?

[Scooter]

So much for "the powers of the president...will not be questioned."

Appeals court rules against Trump’s revised immigration ban

A federal appeals court dealt another blow to President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban targeting six Muslim-majority countries on Thursday, siding with groups that say the policy illegally targets Muslims.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that blocks the Republican’s administration from temporarily suspending new visas for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th Circuit is the first appeals court to rule on the revised travel ban, which Trump’s administration had hoped would avoid the legal problems that the first version encountered.

In all, ten of the thirteen judges who heard the case voted against the Trump administration.

Trump will likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A central question in the case was whether courts should consider Trump’s past statements about wanting to bar Muslims from entering the country as evidence that the policy was primarily motivated by the religion.

Trump’s administration argued that the court should not look beyond the text of the executive order, which doesn’t mention religion. The countries were not chosen because they are predominantly Muslim but because they present terrorism risks, the administration says.

The government’s “asserted national security interest ... appears to be a post hoc, secondary justification for an executive action rooted in religious animus and intended to bar Muslims from this country,” wrote the chief judge of the circuit, Roger L. Gregory.

“Congress granted the president broad power to deny entry to aliens, but that power is not absolute,” Gregory wrote. “It cannot go unchecked when, as here, the president wields it through an executive edict that stands to cause irreparable harm to individuals across this nation.”