Some Sixteen States Weigh In, Preemptively -- To Help Hawaii -- In "Re-Establishing" That Grandparents Are... Close Family

The able USDC Judge Watson will receive the first of 45's lawyers' briefs later today, purportedly explaining why -- despite a US Supreme Court order plainly preserving existing law, the Administration chose to rewrite the well-settled definition of what constitutes "close family" -- in most immigration law settings.

Smartly, almost all the states that have long opposed Muslim Ban 2.0 (or "3.0", if you prefer -- but we will keep the issued retail version, as 2.0 here -- since the Supremes haven't really allowed anything new, beyond existing prior law, to this point), have taken a pre-emptive bite at the apple, by filing as amici as of last night. It is a well-taken bite, too.

Here is a bit, from the 18 pages (PDF) of those sixteen states' amici brief:

. . . .The States of New York, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, and the District of Columbia submit this brief as amici curiae to urge this Court to grant the motion of plaintiffs the State of Hawaii and Ismail Elshikh to enforce, or alternatively, to modify this Court’s preliminary injunction (as amended on June 19, 2017, ECF No. 291), in order to ensure that the injunction is implemented in a manner consistent with its purpose and the Supreme Court’s modification as to its scope. . . .

First, the federal government’s interpretation is not supported by the language used by the Supreme Court in leaving part of the injunction in place. The Supreme Court, while staying the underlying injunction in part, broadly held that sections 2(c), 6(a), and 6(b) of EO-2 “may not be enforced against foreign nationals who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” Trump v. IRAP, 2017 WL 2722580, at *6. The Court made clear that the exclusionary provisions of these sections can be enforced only against those “who have no connection” or “no tie” to the United States. . . .

The [US Supreme] Court’s recognition that a person’s relationship to his or her mother-in-law “clearly” presents a close enough relationship to qualify for protection, id., necessarily implies that the Court viewed the injunction as encompassing a broad category of relationships beyond those found within a traditional nuclear family. . . .

The federal government’s cramped view of what counts as a “close familial relationship” is contradicted both by social science research and by common experience. In particular, the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren is widely recognized as close to — and sometimes a substitute for — the relationship between parents and children. . . .

Indeed. Now you know -- and what sweet and sublime honey dripping thermodynamic wonders will we learn, on Thursday night -- from the JunoCam? Will we finally have an answer (proof, really) as to why it is that some fingers, floating directly above her copper-occluded storms -- radiate, with over three hundred degrees of "extra" heat -- far more than we would expect, from the normal (mortal) physical models, alone? I. For. One. Think. We. Will. Smiling now, wryly. . . .

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