AJC Welcomes Supreme Court Decision to Consider Immigration Executive Order

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Jun 26, 2017, 18:53 ET

NEW YORK, June 26, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC welcomed the United States Supreme Court decision to hear oral argument on the legality of President Trump's Executive Order of March 6, limiting admission of immigrants from six predominantly Muslim countries.

AJC has maintained that the Executive Order was not sufficiently grounded in real threats to national security to withstand judicial scrutiny. The Administration appealed to the Supreme Court after lower courts upheld the injunction against implementing the Executive Order.

In an amicus brief filed in one case, AJC stated that "The executive order lacks a sufficiently rational connection to the national security problems it purports to address," and that it is "contrary to our nation's long history of rational Executive and Legislative action for the humanitarian protection of persecuted populations."

Regarding the Supreme Court decision, AJC noted that it left in place the lower courts' injunctions recognizing that individuals from those countries who can prove a "bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States" are not subject to the Executive Order's arbitrary provisions.

"The issues raised by these cases are complex, and have implications reaching well beyond the confines of President Trump's order. AJC looks forward to arguing against the Executive Order at the Supreme Court level, as it did in the lower court," said AJC General Counsel Marc Stern.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee