Declaring a major personal and political victory, President Donald Trump on Tuesday celebrated the ruling of a sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court, which said the President was well within his executive powers to block the entry into the United States of certain foreign nationals, as he called it a 'tremendous victory for the American people.'
"This is a great victory for our Constitution," the President said to reporters, as he met with lawmakers at the White House.
"The ruling shows that all of the attacks from the media and the Democrat politicians are wrong, and they turned out to be very wrong," Mr. Trump added.
"Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a tremendous victory for the American People and the Constitution," the President said. "The Supreme Court has upheld the clear authority of the President to defend the national security of the United States."
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"I always will always be defending sovereignty and the security of the American people," the President said of the court's decision.
"“The Court rightly upheld the President’s broad constitutional and statutory authority over immigration policy and national security, overruling the baseless decisions issued by activist lower court judges," said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
The decision, which came on the third version of the President's travel order, said the President has broad authority under federal immigration law to block the entry of certain foreign visitors.
"The Proclamation is squarely within the scope of Presidential authority under the INA," the majority opinion noted, referring to the Immigration and Nationality Act.
"The entry suspension is an act that is well within executive authority and could have been taken by any other President," the court's opinion stated.
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Credit: Jamie Dupree
Credit: Jamie Dupree
"Under these circumstances, the Government has set forth a sufficient national security justification to survive rational basis review," Chief Justice Roberts wrote.
Democrats and civil liberties groups denounced the decision.
"No matter how many times the President rewrites his un-American Muslim ban, it won’t change the fact that this historic injustice is immoral and dangerous," said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.
"This ruling will go down in history as one of the Supreme Court’s great failures," the ACLU said in a written statement.
The court's minority echoed that assessment.
"It leaves undisturbed a policy first advertised openly and unequivocally as a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" because the policy now masquerades behind a façade of national-security concerns," wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in the court's dissent.
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