Trump’s travel ban fails in court once again

Like most of his “policies,” President Donald Trump’s travel ban on people from six predominantly Muslim nations wasn’t formulated based on the president’s core beliefs, or on any proof that such a ban would make Americans safer.

It was a creation of Team Trump during the 2016 campaign to pander to the hard-core Trump base. The truth is, Trump has few deep-seated political or social beliefs of his own, and difficulty explaining the ones constructed by his hard-right advisers.

So the president doubtless just shrugged his shoulders when a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his travel ban – just the latest court to do so – based on its belief that the ban violated federal immigration law and that the president had not offered a good reason for the ban.

Exactly. The president’s people may wish to conjure visions of Muslim terrorists flooding the country in anticipation of some kind of war, but the evidence just isn’t there. Of course the United States should join other nations around the world in investigating terrorist activity and trying to prevent attacks, and it is doing so. But instituting some kind of travel ban isn’t any kind of answer, and thanks to the courts, it’s not passing constitutional muster, either.

President Trump needs to formulate anti-terrorist policy that is more than hollow political rhetoric.

This story was originally published June 13, 2017 at 6:00 PM with the headline "Trump’s travel ban fails in court once again."