A federal judge in California has disregarded a higher court’s ruling to reinstate a nationwide injunction against one of the Trump administration’s new immigration rules.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar issued a court order for a nationwide halt to enforcement of a Trump administration rule requiring asylum-seekers who come through multiple countries to apply for refuge in a safe “third country” along the way.

Tigar had already blocked the rule once before in mid-August, but — after the case was appealed — the injunction was dialed back by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which limited to the injunction to areas within their geographic territory. In effect, this meant that the new policy would only have gone into effect for the time being in Texas and New Mexico, but not in Arizona and California, which are within the 9th Circuit’s territory.

“While nationwide injunctions are not the ‘general rule,’ ” Tigar — an Obama appointee who is a judge for the Northern District of California — concluded in his latest decision, “they are appropriate ‘where such breadth [is] necessary to remedy a plaintiff’s harm.'” . . .

“While a small number of suits present matters and settings for which nationwide injunctive relief is appropriate, federal district court judges have issued nationwide injunctions in situations far beyond that set,” writes Ronald Cass — dean emeritus of the Boston University School of Law — in a 2018 academic paper. “Expanded use of nationwide injunctions—especially broad injunctions against the United States—undermines rule-of-law values, threatens the operation of courts as impartial arbiters of disputes over legal rights, erodes the Constitution’s careful separation of functions among the branches of government, and is at odds with basic aspects of the federal judiciary’s design, including its geographic divisions.” (Read more from “Federal Judge Reinstates Order Blocking Trump Immigration Policy Nationwide” HERE)

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Four voters in California, along with the conservative transparency group Judicial Watch, announced Monday they have filed a federal lawsuit against the left-wing state, alleging its new law aimed at strong-arming President Trump into releasing his income tax returns is patently unconstitutional.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law known as the “Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act” last week. It would require Trump and other presidential primary candidates to file their tax returns for the most recent five years to the California secretary of state by November 26 or be excluded from the March 3, 2020 presidential primary ballot.

The measure sailed through the state’s Democratic-led legislature. Former California Gov. Jerry Brown had vetoed a similar version of the law last year, noting that it “may not be constitutional” and sets a “slippery slope precedent” that could lead the state to demand all kinds of documents from candidates.

“Today we require tax returns, but what would be next?” Brown asked. “Five years of health records? A certified birth certificate? High school report cards? And will these requirements vary depending on which political party is in power.” . . .

The Constitution requires only three things of presidents: They have to be a natural-born U.S. citizen; must be at least 35 and must have lived in the country for at least 14 years. (Although the precise legal meaning of the term “natural-born U.S. citizen” is debated, it generally is taken to apply when someone is either born in the U.S. or born abroad to a U.S. citizen.) (Read more from “California Sued over Law Blocking Trump from Ballot” HERE)

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