Friday 14 April 2017

Uncovering the building blocks of Donald Trump's Muslim Ban may be coming a step closer?


North Coast Voices readers may recall a November 2016 post mentioning then U.S. president-elect Donald J. Trump holding a transition meeting at one of his golf courses with Secretary of State for Kansas and counsel for the Immigration Law Reform Institute, Kris Korbach.

Carolyn Kaster / AP

Image enlarged, rotated and cropped

Much of the content of the cover page was clearly visible and included:

1. Update and reintroduce the NSEERS screening and tracking system (National Security Entry-Exit Registration System) that was in place from 2002-2005. All aliens from high-risk areas are tracked.
2. Add extreme vetting questions for high-risk aliens: question them regarding support for Sharia law, jihad, equality of men and women, the United States Constitution.
3. Reduce intake of Syrian refugees to zero, using authority under 1980 Refugee Act.

This document was noticed by the plaintiffs in a case which has been before the U.S. District Court of Kansas since 18 February 2016, challenging the Kansas Documentary Proof of Citizenship (“DPOC”) law and a related regulation under the National Voter Registration Act (“NVRA”) and the United States Constitution.

It has been included in a group of documents that the defendants now have to produce.

Excerpts from STEVEN WAYNE FISH, et al, on behalf of themselves and all other similarly situated, v KRIS KOBACH, in his official capacity as Secretary of State for the State of Kansas, Order:


IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED: Defendant’s objection based on the scope of the Sixth Request is overruled. Defendant shall submit the two identified documents to the chambers of the undersigned by 5:00 p.m. on April 6, 2017. The submission may be made by e-mail, in person, or by a certified mail service.
Dated April 5, 2017, at Kansas City, Kansas.
James P. O’Hara U.S. Magistrate Judge

If the court decides that the document submitted is not covered by executive privilege the world may discover more than Trump would like about the planning behind his Executive Order 13769 otherwise known as the Muslim Ban.

UPDATE

Fish v Kobach was still before the court in October 2017 when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)  published this update, Unsealed Documents Show That Kris Kobach Is Dead Set on Suppressing the Right to Vote which contains a link to a Kobach deposition filed on 26 October 2017.

On 3 January 2018 President Donald Trump announced that the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity had been dissolved allegedly due to a refusal on the part of a number of states to supply the commission with voter registration details rather than an obvious failure to find evidence of voter fraud during the past seven months.

2018 also sees Trump's Muslim Ban still being contested before US courts.

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