FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Shadawn Reddick-Smith
(202) 225-6906
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Subcommittee on Immigration Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) today released the following joint statement after the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would take up Trump’s Muslim and Refugee ban:
“Today’s Supreme Court decision recognizes a central constitutional defect in Donald Trump’s Muslim and Refugee Ban—the damage it inflicts on the interests of U.S. citizens and institutions. As the opinion notes, the ban serves to separate citizens from their foreign national family members, American universities from their students, and U.S. employers from their workers. By leaving in place the lower courts’ block on the Trump Administration’s attempts to bar foreign nationals with U.S. ties from entering the country, the Court underscores the ban’s unconstitutionality and adverse impact on America as a whole.
“At the same time, the Court’s opinion fails to reflect other key ways in which the ban violates our Constitution. Most important, by allowing the Trump Administration to bar the entry into the United States of certain travelers from Muslim-majority countries and refugees without U.S. ties, the Court ignored the Order’s fundamentally discriminatory intent and effect. Candidate Trump campaigned on a Muslim ban; the Supreme Court should have realized this Order fulfilled that pledge.
“We are deeply disappointed in this portion of the Court’s decision, which will enable the Trump Administration to disrupt and upend the lives of many thousands of innocent people. Making matters worse, the ban will weaken the U.S. economy and undermine our relationships with key partners abroad in the fight against terror.
“We therefore urge our Republican colleagues to join Democrats in supporting H.R. 1503, the Statute of Liberty Values Act 2.0 (SOLVe 2.0). This bill would nullify in full the Muslim and Refugee ban—which, as reflected in today’s Supreme Court decision, is unconstitutional at its core—ending its harmful consequences for our national values, economy, and security.”
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