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President Trump: America ‘Must Never, Ever’ Stop Asking God for Wisdom

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At Thursday morning’s National Prayer Breakfast, President Trump said the whole world has a duty to stop the “genocide” of Christians in the Middle East.

He blasted the terrorism that religious minorities face in some parts of the world, said we “must never, ever” stop asking God for wisdom, and declared that America will flourish “when religious liberty can flourish.”

“Freedom of religion is a sacred right,” President Trump said. He promised his administration “will do everything in its power to defend and protect religious liberty in our land” and around the world.

He outlined the severity of threats to religious freedom around the world: “We have seen peace-loving Muslims brutalized, victimized, murdered, and oppressed by ISIS killers. We have seen threats of extermination against the Jewish people. We have seen a campaign of ISIS and genocide against Christians, where they cut off heads. Not since the Middle Ages have we seen that. We haven’t seen that – the cutting off of heads. Now they cut off the heads, they drown people in steel cages…Nobody’s seen this for many, many years.”

“All nations have a moral obligation to speak out against such violence,” he said. “All nations have a duty to work to confront it and to confront it viciously if we have to. So I want to express clearly today to the American people that my administration will do everything in its power to defend and protect religious liberty in our land. America must forever remain a tolerant society where all faiths are respected and where all of our citizens can feel safe and secure. We have to feel safe and secure.” (Read more from “President Trump: America ‘Must Never, Ever’ Stop Asking God for Wisdom” HERE)

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With Gorsuch Pick and Sane Policy Towards Islamists, Trump Defends the Vulnerable

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I’m delighted to admit it: I was wrong. I was one of those Christian conservatives who never came around to trusting Donald Trump. I didn’t endorse him, and almost couldn’t vote for him. At the last moment, as I stared at the ballot, thinking of Clinton’s track record of pro-abortion extremism and reckless disregard for religious minorities in the Middle East, I managed to pull the lever.

How glad I am that I did. As I learn more and more about Neil Gorsuch, I cannot wait for him to fill Justice Scalia’s chair on the U.S. Supreme Court. Tens of millions of pro-life Americans should today offer prayers of thanks, and publicly praise the President for such a solid, courageous choice. We must get on the phones and social media, pressing our senators to confirm Judge Gorsuch.

Iraqis in Refugee Camps Danced for Joy When Trump Took Office

But I’d already seen an excellent reason to be thankful that Donald Trump won. On his inauguration day, I wasn’t in Washington, D.C., but in Iraq — finishing up a tour of refugee camps on the borders of ISIS territory, for a documentary I’m producing.

If you thought that Republicans in D.C. were celebrating Trump’s entry into office, you should have seen the Iraqis in those camps. Muslims, Christians, and Yezedis alike were cheering and dancing together. (So, as I learned from my friends there, were Christians down in embattled South Sudan.)

If you want a grimly objective measuring stick of the impact Trump’s election had in this war-torn region: The sex slave traders of ISIS are afraid that their supply of Christian and Yezidi women will soon dry up, so the price of a sex-trafficked girl in Iraq shot up from $8,000 to $20,000. So I learned from a Yezidi family that is trying to ransom back a daughter.

I stopped to ask some of the refugees why they were excited about Trump’s victory. One after another answered me: Because he knows how evil ISIS really is, and he really will “eradicate” it. The Muslims in these camps despised ISIS, which drew support from a fanatical minority and funds from outside the country, then went on to brutalize and destroy their ancestral villages.

“Obama Slit Our Throats with Cotton.”

Obama, by contrast, dismissed ISIS as a “junior varsity” organization. In fact, as every Iraqi whom I spoke with about this told me, it was Obama’s policies that let ISIS become such a monstrous evil. Even those who’d opposed George Bush’s invasion in 2003 — including one of Saddam Hussein’s former generals, whom I interviewed — blamed Obama for making things much, much worse in Iraq by pulling U.S. troops out and leaving a power vacuum, which ISIS filled with blood, tyranny, and terror.

I met with dozens of people, and spoke as the only American at an interreligious conference. From military officers down to ordinary people in the camps, I kept hearing the same conspiracy theory. These people believed that Obama must have somehow wanted ISIS to win. One high-ranking soldier in a Kurdish peshmerga told me how his soldiers saw long lines of ISIS-owned oil tankers streaming into Turkey. They wanted to attack, but the American military advisor whom Obama had sent forbade them — and threatened them with U.S. airstrikes if they disobeyed him. Another officer told me that U.S. advisors had ordered his forces not to defend Mosul from ISIS. The phrase these people kept using, an Iraqi expression, was: “Obama slit our throats — with cotton.”

I pushed the questions further. Weren’t they worried that Trump’s “extreme vetting” of potential refugees from Iraq, Syria, and other troubled countries would keep them out of America? To this they had two answers. First, they simply laughed — and explained that it would be easy to determine which refugees hated ISIS, since all of them did. But more important than that, one after another insisted: “We don’t want to come to America. We want to go home to our towns. We want the U.S. to get ISIS out of the way so we can go back to living our lives, as we were before Obama let ISIS destroy them.”

“We Don’t Want to be Refugees in America.”

Didn’t it bother them that Donald Trump was suspicious of admitting refugees from countries with large jihadi movements? To that they answered again, “What makes you think that the whole world wants to come live in America? We want you to stop blundering in and destroying our countries. Help us stay safe here in the region, and hurry up and defeat the extremists so we can go home.” They mentioned more than ISIS here, noting that they also hoped that other radical Islamist groups such as al Nusra and al Qaeda could be defeated. And they were confident that Donald Trump would do that.

What made them so hopeful? The fact that Trump speaks in plain, honest language about defending America’s national interests — a natural, human concept that people around the world can understand and appreciate. Instead of the Kantian flim-flam of liberal internationalists, or the empty promises of neocon democracy-mongers, Trump talks about fighting America’s enemies and trying to help its friends. To Iraqis brutalized by high-minded Americans for the past 16 years, Trump’s bluntness has the ring of simple truth.

So let’s recap. We have elected a man who during a presidential debate cut through the euphemisms and graphically described a partial birth abortion. A man who sent his Vice President and campaign chair to address the March for Life, and who has chosen for the Supreme Court a judge who believes that the words of the Constitution mean exactly what they say. Trump also believes that his duty to protect his fellow citizens comes first — and that our extremist enemies who say that they want to destroy us also mean what they say, and that we should act to destroy them first, and keep their infiltrators out of our cities and suburbs.

President Trump’s loudest critics on the left mostly said nothing at all when Barack Obama allowed the Middle East to descend into brutal chaos, when ISIS ramped up its genocide and sex-trafficking enterprise, when millions of religious minorities were ethnically cleansed or killed. These same people helped cover for Planned Parenthood’s human organ trafficking. But now they are treating the president’s simple (if perhaps badly implemented) safety measures on immigration as a crime against humanity.

We should be very, very glad that these people lost the election, and aren’t running our country, picking our judges, or deciding the fate of the helpless in the refugee camps of Iraq. (For more from the author of “With Gorsuch Pick and Sane Policy Towards Islamists, Trump Defends the Vulnerable” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Should Rescind Obama’s Transgender Agenda and Protect Religious Liberty

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The media was abuzz yesterday with rumors that President Donald Trump was preparing an executive order that would protect religious liberty in the aftermath of the redefinition of marriage.

Trump should issue such an executive order, and he should rescind former President Barack Obama’s executive actions on sexual orientation and gender identity that created many of these problems in the first place.

While a candidate, Trump promised to sign the First Amendment Defense Act into law. He needn’t simply wait for Congress. While legislation provides the best long-term protections, Trump can lawfully enact many of those protections through an executive order right now.

Such an order would instruct agencies of the federal government that they may not penalize certain individuals and institutions for acting on the conviction that marriage is the union of husband and wife.

Such an executive order, like the First Amendment Defense Act itself, should strike a careful balance as to whom and when these protections apply. Under the First Amendment Defense Act, protected entities include individuals, nonprofit charities and privately held businesses.

The act, however, would not apply to federal employees and contractors with respect to their job or contract duties. It does allow reasonable accommodation of federal employees’ religion, as under current law, but it makes clear that it does not relieve the federal government of its duty to provide government services, medical care or benefits to all who qualify — it must simply respect conscience in doing so.

Trump’s executive order should do the same.

An executive order on religious liberty should also include protections found in the Russell Amendment. This would prevent the federal government from discriminating against faith-based social service providers who maintain staffing policies that accord with their faith.

Religious charities shouldn’t have to give up their mission and identity simply because they partner with the government in serving the public.

In addition to proactively protecting the rights of Americans to hire for religious mission and to act on the conviction that marriage is the union of husband and wife, Trump should also rescind the various Obama executive actions that caused these problems.

A statement from the Trump administration notes that Trump was the “first ever GOP nominee to mention the LGBTQ community in his nomination acceptance speech, pledging then to protect the community from violence and oppression.”

Trump can and should protect all Americans from violence and oppression, but he should not go along with Obama’s policies of elevating “sexual orientation and gender identity” to a protected class.

The First Amendment Defense Act and similar religious liberty provisions oppress no one — they protect Americans from government-sponsored discrimination and coercion.

For example, in 2014, Obama issued an executive order barring “discrimination” on the basis of “sexual orientation and gender identity” in the private employment policies of federal contractors.

But according to liberals advocating such policies, “discrimination” on the basis of “sexual orientation” can be something as reasonable as an adoption agency preferring married moms and dads for orphans.

And “discrimination” on the basis of “gender identity” can be something as simple as having a bathroom policy based on biological sex, not gender identity.

Indeed, the Obama departments of Justice and Education instructed school districts throughout the country that they would interpret a 1972 law, Title IX, to require schools to allow students to use the bathroom, locker room and shower facility that accords with their self-declared “gender identity.”

They did this by saying the word “sex” would now mean “gender identity.”

Similarly, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services claimed a provision in Obamacare that forbids discrimination on the basis of “sex” means “gender identity” — and thus all health care plans have to cover sex reassignment therapies, and all relevant physicians have to perform them.

Parents and citizens across the country were astonished at this stunning overreach by Washington bureaucracy into local school bathroom policy and delicate medical decisions.

All of this can be undone right away. Trump can rescind Obama’s executive orders, and he can instruct his secretaries of education and health and human services and his attorney general to interpret the word “sex” as Congress intended it — as a biological reality, not as “gender identity.”

Trump can lawfully undo much of the damage that Obama caused, and he can provide immediate protections to all Americans through lawful executive orders.

Congress can then make these orders permanent by passing the First Amendment Defense Act, the Russell Amendment and the Civil Rights Uniformity Act (which specifies that the word “sex” in our civil rights laws does not mean “gender identity” unless Congress explicitly says so).

Whether it be harassing an order of nuns, forcing doctors to perform sex reassignment therapies, or preventing local schools from finding win-win compromise solutions that would respect all students’ bodily privacy, the Obama administration waged an aggressive and unnecessary culture war.

Because it has done so almost exclusively through executive action, a Trump administration can quickly undo this damage. And Congress can then ratify it permanently in law.

That’ll go a long way toward protecting peaceful coexistence, making American truly great again. (For more from the author of “Trump Should Rescind Obama’s Transgender Agenda and Protect Religious Liberty” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Trump Makes Unannounced Trip to Honor Fallen Navy SEAL

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Assuming the somber duties of commander in chief, President Donald Trump made an unannounced trip Wednesday to honor the returning remains of a U.S. Navy SEAL killed in a weekend raid in Yemen.

Chief Special Warfare Operator William “Ryan” Owens, a 36-year-old from Peoria, Illinois, was the first known U.S. combat casualty since Trump took office less than two weeks ago. More than half a dozen militant suspects were also killed in the raid on an Al Qaeda compound and three other U.S. service members were wounded . . .

Trump’s trip to Delaware’s Dover Air Base was shrouded in secrecy. The president and his daughter, Ivanka, departed the White House in the presidential helicopter with their destination unannounced. A small group of journalists traveled with Trump on the condition that the visit was not reported until his arrival. (Read more from “Trump Makes Unannounced Trip to Honor Fallen Navy SEAL” HERE)

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Separating Fact from Sickening Media Fiction on Trump’s Immigration Executive Order

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There is a lot of confusion swirling around the events that transpired this weekend as a result of Trump’s executive order on immigration. Make no mistake: every word of Trump’s executive order is in accordance with statute.

It’s important not to conflate political arguments with legal arguments, as many liberals and far too many “conservatives” on social media are doing. While the timing and coordination of implementing this order might have been poorly planned, we shouldn’t allow that to undermine the broader need to defend our sovereignty. For courts to violate years’ worth of precedent and steal our sovereignty should concern everyone.

What the order actually does

Among other things, the key provisions at the center of the existing controversy are as follows:

It shuts off the issuance of all new immigrant and non-immigrant visas for 90 days from the following seven volatile countries: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Any non-citizen from those seven countries (not “all” Muslim countries) is excluded from entering the country during this time-period (which usually means they won’t be able to board a direct flight to America). After 30 days, the secretary of state and secretary of homeland security must submit a report to completely revamp the vetting process going forward.

Within 60 days, countries will have to submit any information that the administration determines necessary, pursuant to the findings of this report, in order to adjudicate a visa application and ensure they are properly vetted. Any country that fails to submit this information will not be able to send foreign nationals to our country. All the while, the ban can be extended and expanded at any time.

In addition, the entire refugee resettlement program is suspended for four months pending a complete investigation of the program and a plan to restructure it and prioritize those who are truly in danger of religious persecution. After 120 days, the program may resume, but only for those countries Secretaries Kelly and Tillerson determine do not pose a threat. The program from Syria is completely suspended until the president personally gives the green light.

With regards to refugees and those who seek to enter from the seven countries temporarily excluded, the order gave discretion to the State Department and DHS to admit individuals on a case-by-case basis for important reasons, even during the temporary moratorium.

Statement of principles on the right of a country to exclude non-citizens

Those who want to immigrate: There is no affirmative right, constitutional or otherwise, to visit or settle in the United States. Period.

Based on the social contract, social compact, sovereignty, long-standing law of nation-states, governance by the consent of the governed, the plenary power of Congress over immigration, and 200 years of case law, our political branches of government have the power to exclude or invite any individual or classes people for any reason on a temporary or even permanent basis – without any involvement from the courts. Congress has already delegated its authority to the president to shut off any form of immigration at will at any time.

Immigrants already here: Those already admitted to this country with the consent of the citizenry have unalienable rights. They cannot be indefinitely detained. However, they can be deported for any reason if they are not citizens. In Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893), which is still settled law, the court ruled that Congress has the same plenary power to deport aliens for any reason as it does to exclude them and that the statutory procedures and conditions for doing so are due process. Congress has established the process for deportation of those already here. However, as long as a legal permanent resident leaves the country he has no affirmative right to re-enter. Either way, they have absolutely no right to judicial review other than to ensure that statutes are properly followed.

But can Trump prevent those with green cards from re-entering the country?

The statute is clear as day. The Immigration and Nationality Act (§ 212(f)) gives the president plenary power to “by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants.” Clearly, the president has the authority to block any non-citizen – including refugees, green card holders, and foreign students – from entering the country. Also, for purposes of deportation, there is no difference between a green card holder or a holder of a non-immigrant visa. No foreign national who has not yet obtained citizenship has an affirmative right to re-enter the country.

Is this a ban on Muslim immigration?

No, it’s a moratorium on immigration or re-entries from seven individual countries and a temporary moratorium on refugees from all countries, subject to case-by-case exceptions.

Why didn’t Trump place restrictions on immigration/visas from Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries?

That’s probably a good idea. But this was actually a judicious and cautious approach from Trump to start with low-hanging fruit. These seven countries are failed states or enemies of the U.S. (in the case of Iran). As such, there is absolutely no way to share data with the host countries and properly vet them. Somalia has been one of the biggest trouble spots. The other countries are marred in Islamic civil wars. Moreover, these are the countries that existing law targets for travel restrictions, and that Obama’s own DHS listed last year.

Why would Trump include green card holders in the ban on re-entry?

Both liberals and conservatives expressed concern over hundreds of individuals going over to fight for ISIS. We are already limited in how we can combat this growing threat among U.S. citizens. Given that it is completely legal to exclude non-citizens upon re-entry, Trump extended the ban to legal permanent residents as well.

If a Somali refugee is travelling back to Somalia (so much for credible fear of persecution!), government officials should have the ability to prevent that person from coming back when necessary. Obviously, there are some individuals from these seven countries who already have green cards and we might not want to exclude. That is why the order grants discretion to the State Department to issue case-by-case exemptions for “religious persecution, “or when the person is already in transit and denying admission would cause undue hardship.” A CBP agent is always stationed at any international airport from which these individuals would board a direct flight to the United States (Paris and Dubai, for example). That individual would not allow anyone covered by this ban onto a U.S.-bound flight unless he grants them a hardship exemption.

Indeed, it appears that green card holders returning yesterday from those seven countries were all granted entry.

What’s with the chaos at the airports and the courts?

Henceforth, CBP agents will not allow individual aliens from those seven countries to board a flight to the U.S. So the chaos will end.

The problem arose from the 100 or so individuals that were already in transit when the order took effect. When they arrived at American airports, they were detained at customs. Standing at this point is not tantamount to being on American soil.[4] However, a federal judge in New York issued a stay and prevented the feds from sending two individuals back on a flight. Other judges have prevented officials from even detaining such persons. It’s unclear if federal agents might have made a mistake and released some of these individuals before ordering them to leave the country. Once they are released onto American soil, any effort to remove them is treated as a deportation, not an exclusion, and is subject to the due process afforded them by congressional statutes (not the Constitution).

Thus, it’s unclear if the stay even applied to any element of the order or whether it applied to anomalous circumstances or particular actions taken by federal officials that overstepped the order.

It’s also confusing because many contemporary judges have no respect for our sovereignty and have been gradually chipping away at the plenary power of Congress (or the president, pursuant to statute) to exclude aliens re-entering the country, despite years of settled law. If courts are indeed violating our sovereignty, this is the very grave danger I warned about in Stolen Sovereignty. Either way, it should not affect the ability of the administration to enforce the order against those who want to prospectively board flights to return. (For more from the author of “Separating Fact from Sickening Media Fiction on Trump’s Immigration Executive Order” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Acting Attorney General’s Defiance of Trump Shows Politicized Nature of DOJ

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The kerfuffle on Monday night over former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates’ statement criticizing President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring better screening of travelers from failed countries that are the biggest sources of terrorists in the world shows the difference between a Justice Department guided by politics versus the rule of law.

In the statement that Yates circulated inside the Justice Department, she said the department would not defend the executive order against the proliferation of lawsuits being filed against it because she was not “convinced” that that it was “legally defensible.”

Furthermore, she claimed that in addition to her legal responsibilities, she has an obligation to “stand for what is right” and she obviously does not believe this executive order is “right.”

But Yates is wrong.

As the deputy attorney general and acting attorney general, her obligation is to defend federal law and actions taken by the president pursuant to the law when there is a valid basis for doing so, regardless of whether or not she agrees with the president from a public policy standpoint or thinks his action is the “right” thing to do.

There is no question that the president’s executive order is eminently defensible and that he is entitled to have the Department of Justice defend it in court.

In his executive order, the president cites a provision of federal immigration law, 8 U.S.C. §1182(f), which gives him almost unlimited discretion to suspend “the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States” if, in his judgment, their entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

Since Congress has absolute authority under the Constitution to determine our immigration policy, its delegation to the president of this authority is perfectly constitutional.

Yates’ decision appears to have been primarily motivated by politics, not law, which, no doubt, prompted the action Trump took in firing her almost immediately.

The constitutionality and legality of the executive order is bolstered by the fact that, as even Yates was forced to acknowledge, the order was reviewed by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which concluded that it was “lawful on its face and properly drafted.”

It has long been the job of the Office of Legal Counsel to analyze laws passed by Congress and executive orders issued by the president to determine their constitutionality and determine whether they can be defended in the courts when they are challenged.

As its own website explains, it is Office of Legal Counsel “by delegation from the attorney general” that “provides authoritative legal advice to the president.”

So Yates’ claim that the immigration executive order is legally indefensible flies in the face of the Office of Legal Counsel’s legal opinion—which constitutes the Justice Department’s legal opinion—that the president’s executive order is, indeed, “lawful.”

As a statement released by the White House said, by her refusal to carry out her duty to defend the executive order, Yates “betrayed the Department of Justice.”

It is clear from her statement that Yates took her action because she doesn’t like the executive order as public policy. As the White House statement says, that is because she “is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.”

As former Justice Department official Jack Goldsmith says, if Yates didn’t like this executive order, the proper course for her would be to resign—not tell Justice Department lawyers that they would not be allowed to defend a lawful action of the president.

There is no doubt that Yates is going to be portrayed as a martyr by progressives and the media who don’t like the executive order because she was fired. But she allowed her political views to interfere with her basic professional obligation to enforce the rule of law and to defend an executive order issued by the president that her own department had already concluded was lawfully issued.

She failed in her duty as the acting attorney general and is certainly not a martyr.

Yates has also provided the final confirmation of how politicized the Justice Department became under President Barack Obama. It is going to take a long time and a lot of work for Attorney General-designate Jeff Sessions to restore the department’s professionalism and its reputation. (For more from the author of “Acting Attorney General’s Defiance of Trump Shows Politicized Nature of DOJ” please click HERE)

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Newt Gingrich: Trump Is Doing Exactly What He Said He Would Do

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Two weeks into his presidency, Donald Trump has been successful in fulfilling many of the promises he campaigned on, but he’s nowhere near finished, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said.

Speaking Monday at The Heritage Foundation for the final installment in his six-part series on understanding Trump and Trumpism, Gingrich described the president as “the new presidential”—delivering on what he said he would.

Gingrich also addressed those on the left who question Trump’s legitimacy as a president.

“By definition, whatever he does is presidential, it’s just a new presidential,” he said. “So the new presidential tweets. That doesn’t mean he has to give up tweeting and start writing in longhand with a quill pen to think he’s presidential.”

Political elites and left-leaning news media refuse to understand Trump because he isn’t a politician, according to Gingrich.

“He is a business leader who became president. He never became a politician in between,” Gingrich said. “He has no interest in learning how to be a politician. He has every interest in getting things done.”

Gingrich cited Trump’s recent executive order, which will halt individuals from seven countries from entering the United States for 90 days, as yet another incident to infuriate the liberal news media.

“He’s been saying it for 10 months. You would think at some point in the 10 months they would have gone, ‘Oh, what if he actually means it?’” Gingrich said.

The news media’s reporting of the executive order, describing it as a “Muslim ban,” was a “total, dangerous lie,” Gingrich said.

“Every newspaper and every television reporter who said it should be ashamed of themselves,” he said.

According to Gingrich, the media’s irresponsible “lie” sent a signal to over a billion Muslims about something that is “totally false.”

“The largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia; it’s not touched,” he noted. “The second-largest Muslim country, by the way, is India, it’s not touched. Go down the list.”

While the order was not flawless, Gingrich said, the left would still be outraged, regardless of the timing.

“Do any of you doubt that if he’d done this six weeks from now with prior notice that there would have been demonstrations for days leading up to it?” Gingrich asked.

Trump’s favorability and poll numbers will reflect the media’s biased coverage, Gingrich predicted.

“I guarantee you, for a while, Trump’s poll numbers will be bad. And they’ll be bad because every element of the elite media will lie about him every day.” (For more from the author of “Newt Gingrich: Trump Is Doing Exactly What He Said He Would Do” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Microsoft, Amazon and Expedia Collude with Washington State to Get Another Activist Court to Strike down Trump Refugee Ban

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By Darrell Etherington. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced Monday that he’s filing suit in federal court against Trump, the Department of Homeland Security and select senior Trump administration officials, seeking a declaration that key portions of Trump’s Executive Order on immigration be declared unconstitutional. Alongside the lawsuit, Washington-based tech companies Amazon and Expedia are filing supporting declarations that outline how the order is negatively impacting their business, and their employees.

The Attorney General’s suit will argue that the order violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection to all, and the right of individuals to due process. It also claims that it’s in contravention of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, and that it violates the Establishment Clause, which prevents creation of laws that establish an official state religion, or favor one over another.

The declarations provided by Amazon and Expedia seem to focus on the potential economic impact of the executive order, rather than on its constitutional validity or lack thereof. . .

Microsoft is also supporting the Washington Attorney General’s lawsuit against the executive order with a similar declaration to those provided by Amazon and Expedia, Reuters reports. (Read more from “Microsoft, Amazon and Expedia Collude with Washington State to Get Another Activist Court to Strike down Trump Refugee Ban” HERE)

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Trump Reportedly Set to Sign Order Overhauling High-Tech Visa Program Used by Microsoft, Amazon

By Ashley Stewart. President Donald Trump on Monday will reportedly sign an executive order to overhaul the federal program that helps Microsoft, Amazon and many Puget Sound-area technology companies bring in highly skilled workers from around the world when they can’t fill job locally.

The overhaul, reported by Bloomberg, would be the latest in a series of Trump orders to restrict the U.S. immigration system. The draft proposal targets H-1B visas – which allows employers to bring in foreign workers to fill specialized U.S. jobs when they can’t find local workers with appropriate skills – and other visa programs, including the L-1 transfer visas.

“Our country’s immigration policies should be designed and implemented to serve, first and foremost, the U.S. national interest,” the draft proposal said, according to Bloomberg. “Visa programs for foreign workers … should be administered in a manner that protects the civil rights of American workers and current lawful residents, and that prioritizes the protection of American workers – our forgotten working people – and the jobs they hold.” (Read more from “Trump Reportedly Set to Sign Order Overhauling High-Tech Visa Program Used by Microsoft, Amazon” HERE)

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Trump Fires Acting AG for Refusing to Defend Travel Ban

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President Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates on Monday just hours after she defied him by refusing to have the Justice Department defend his controversial executive order blocking people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

The White House acted swiftly, issuing a statement declaring that Yates, who was appointed by former President Obama, had “betrayed” the U.S. government.

Trump selected Dana Boente, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, to replace Yates until his attorney general nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), is confirmed by the Senate. That vote could occur this week.

“Ms. Yates is an Obama administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration,” the White House said in a statement. “It is time to get serious about protecting our country.”

The decision to ax Yates capped off a turbulent day in which the Trump administration was forced to confront mounting opposition to its order, which bars all refugees for four months and bans citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, Sudan and Yemen from entering the U.S. for at least 90 days. (Read more from “Trump Fires Acting AG for Refusing to Defend Travel Ban” HERE)

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What Republican Lawmakers Say About Trump’s Order on Refugees

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Republicans in Congress had mixed reactions in the immediate wake of President Donald Trump’s executive order Friday stopping individuals from seven countries where Islamist terrorists operate from entering the country for 90 days.

Some GOP lawmakers, such as Sens. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., expressed concerns about who the order targeted and how it was implemented—but without the force of Democrats’ widespread opposition. The order also temporarily halts entry of refugees.

“The president is right to focus attention on the obvious fact that borders matter,” Sasse said in a statement issued Saturday. “At the same time, while not technically a Muslim ban, this order is too broad.”

Rubio and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., released a joint statement Sunday, saying they support vetting those who want to enter the country, but have qualms.

“After reviewing the recent executive orders, it is clear to us that some of what is being said and reported about the scope and implications of these measures is misleading,” Rubio and Scott said. “However, it is also clear that the manner in which these measures were crafted and implemented have greatly contributed to the confusion, anxiety, and uncertainty of the last few days.”

Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., is one conservative lawmaker who supports Trump’s action.

“If you follow the facts and the figures, you get a much different story than what the press is talking about,” Brat said in a phone interview with The Daily Signal. Brat said the executive order is a “short-run vetting of migrants from seven countries that were chosen by the Obama administration and by intelligence officials because these seven countries are known to fund and train and export terror.”

Countries affected by the temporary travel ban are Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.

Trump’s executive order also indefinitely pauses the entry of Syrian refugees into the United States, a practice his predecessor, Barack Obama, had accelerated.

In 2015, Obama also imposed restrictions on people who had visited Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria on or after March 1, 2011, as CNN and others reported.

The Obama administration later added Libya, Somalia, and Yemen to the list to address what it called “the growing threat from foreign terrorist fighters,” CNN reported.

Brat said that although some object to Trump’s executive order and argue that individuals from these countries have not committed acts of terror, the executive order is well warranted.

Intelligence officials support further review of individuals traveling from the seven countries, the Virginia Republican said.

“Go ask the intelligence officers if there’s been funding streamed to terrorist groups from these countries, if there’s been training and folks coming in and out of those counties, and they’re actually making their way here hoping to spread terror. And the answer will be a 100 percent yes,” Brat said.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said the executive order is Trump’s way of making good on his campaign promises.

“[Trump] campaigned on this, he ran on this, and now he is getting to implement this,” Jordan said in an interview Monday morning with Bob Frantz, host of the radio show “The Answer” on WHK-AM, a Cleveland radio station.

Jordan, former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said he does not anticipate the order to provoke more violence from terrorists, and that Trump’s move “makes sense.” He said:

This idea that somehow this will make the terrorists mad, my guess is they’re already mad based on what they’ve done to our country, what they’ve done around the world. So let’s focus on common sense. … If you’re going to let [citizens of those nations] in here, you need to make sure that you have thoroughly checked them out and that they are not part of some sort of terrorist organization. I think that makes sense. Let’s make sure we do it right.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., also said Trump is keeping campaign promises, but acknowledged that the order could have been executed more seamlessly.

“President Trump and his administration have been taking steps to fulfill his campaign promises,” Isakson said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal, “and he’s right that we need to strengthen our national security and improve the vetting process for people coming into our country.”

While the intentions were good, Isakson said, the administration should make sure the order doesn’t hurt “law-abiding Americans.”

“I hope that President Trump will consult with the national security team he has assembled with the advice and consent of the Senate, so that security measures are properly implemented and do not infringe on the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans,” Isakson said.

Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said the executive order is “to ensure the safety of every American” but must be tempered with compassion. He voiced support for Trump’s move to “slow things down.”

“We have always been a compassionate nation, and will continue to be a beacon of hope and freedom for the world,” Walker said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal, adding:

The refugee resettlement program is important in keeping with that tradition. But, we also have an obligation to ensure the safety of every American. Top national security officials have admitted that the government is unable to fully vet refugees. We need to slow things down and examine the flaws in the system so that it can be strengthened.

Walker said the Trump administration should, however, quickly clarify any ambiguities.

“The language of the order should not apply to legal, permanent residents of the United States, and if it is being enforced in any other way, the administration should step in swiftly to clarify,” Walker said.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said in a prepared statement Monday that Trump is using the powers vested in him by Congress and the Constitution.

“The president is acting temporarily and prudently to give his administration and Congress the much-needed time to properly evaluate the refugee program and reform it to ensure that it both helps legitimate refugees and ensures the safety of the American people,” Gohmert said.

Trump’s order is not bias, Gohmert said, but a constitutional vehicle to protect Americans.

“With this president’s action to pause refugee admissions, not based on their religion but on whether there is adequate information to determine if they are a threat, he is constitutionally acting to protect Americans,” Gohmert said.

For other Republican lawmakers, however, the executive order has become a point of contention with the newly inaugurated president.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., released a joint statement Sunday saying the order could become counterproductive in the fight against terrorism.

“It is clear from the confusion at our airports across the nation that President Trump’s executive order was not properly vetted,” McCain and Graham said. “We are particularly concerned by reports that this order went into effect with little to no consultation with the departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security.”

Unlike McCain and Graham, Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said the temporary ban is justified and necessary.

“America welcomes Muslims from 190 countries and temporarily bans all individuals from seven countries,” Buck said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal. “The president’s executive order is a temporary effort that addresses a serious issue with terrorist hot spots.” (For more from the author of “What Republican Lawmakers Say About Trump’s Order on Refugees” please click HERE)

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