Phil, I'm using "right" and "authority" interchangeably.
OK, but you shouldn't - they don't mean the same thing and in a discussion like this, it's an important distinction.
The point is the President gets his authority to exclude aliens from a Congressional law not SCOTUS.
That doesn't matter at all. It can't trump a constitutional right.
SCOTUS just ruled that as long as the alien has no ties to America or Americans, that authority granted in legislation is constitutional.
No, it didn't. They have not ruled on the constitutionality of anything with this writ of certiorari.
They have ONLY ruled on the extent to which the lower court can block the executive order. It's a HUGELY different thing.
If a president extends the vetting to make it impossible for that alien to get in unless he can show "he can walk on water", SCOTUS would have to reverse its own opinion to stop him from that kind of extreme vetting.
No, they wouldn't. They haven't yet ruled. They did say that the Executive's powers were at their peak with respect to blocking aliens with no ties. That's ALL they said in that regard. It is most likely that their decision will be whether PotUS has absolute authority to block aliens with no ties (i.e. needs no specific reason or can impose any requirement) or has limited authority (in which case they will effectively leave open the option of challenging any such order in the future). They are extremely unlikely to provide a specific list of limitations unless they decide (also extremely unlikely) that aliens with no ties have constitutional protections.
Remember the whole point of what Trump is doing is to make the vetting extreme.
No, it's not. The whole point is that Trump wants to be able to say "Look, I blocked them all!". He wants to be seen, clearly, to be doing something "big" to stop "them", even though "they" haven't done anything to the US and the "ones" who did came from somewhere else. If he just wanted to make the vetting tougher, he could have done it without all of this trouble.
So I'm saying the he's going to make a splash with the new vetting ruling to show how tough he is.
Yes, that is what he is trying to do, despite it being pointless (in fact it's worse than pointless - it will make people think they're safer but it won't actually improve anything).
His supporters will cheer and enemies will scowl. But, SCOTUS has to approve or reverse their own 9-0 ruling.
No, they don't. It's been explained multiple times. They haven't ruled on the matter. If he issued a new EO attempting to block another group, it could be challenged in a lower court just as the first two have been.
One other thing. The anti-Trump forces are downplaying the SCOTUS decision. They say it only effects a few tourists and photographers who want to visit Yosemite and get sunset pictures from Inspiration Point. That's nonsense. His EO stops 99.9% of all people living in the 6 countries. They don't have any ties to America. So if any of them are terrorists trying to sneak in, he's stopping them with the EO. People who have ties represent only an tiny percentage of the six countries.
Of 99.9% of people blocked by the EO, 99.999% of them are not attempting to enter the US without any ties to it. So it's true, the class of people affected might be large but the group who are actually affected is extremely small. It's all about show. It's why Trump wants to build a wall. He wants to claim to do big things even if they only have a tiny impact or effect.
Finally, the argument that the 9-11 terrorists were mainly Saudi has nothing to do with the selection of countries. 9-11 was 16 years ago. After all, Japan is a close ally who was once our mortal enemy. But the main issue is that the 6 nations in the EO are failed states or terrorist states. It's difficult to vet people who want to come here. Saudi Arabia is not a failed state who also chops the heads off of terrorists, We can vet people from there more easily. They are also a strong ally so political decisions are in play as well. These other countries are not our allies. The whole point of the EO is to give the government 90 days to review and adjust the vetting process to take any holes in it that might let in terrorists. Hasn't your country Australia tightened up the rules since 9-11 for aliens to gain entry?
Saudi Arabia is still a breeding ground for terrorists. That's well established and well known. They are also very likely still funding many grounds (or at least elements within SA are).
Yes, if it's difficult to vet people from a particular country and they don't meet those standards then deny them entry. That doesn't need an EO. If you want to increase the level of vetting, do it - it doesn't need an EO. There was nothing stopping the government from reviewing the vetting standards already.
Yes, Australia's immigration vetting and process have developed and are now more stringent, particularly from certain countries. No one that I've seen is challenging the idea that the US can do the same (indeed, it already has). But the blanket ban (which at least Trump is correctly calling it instead of trying to sugar-coat it as a "pause") simply wasn't necessary to do the review nor in its current form does it really have any impact.
