"As He Shall Deem Necessary," An Analysis of the Trump v. Hawaii Decision Through Precedents and Powers in the Executive-Judicial Relationship

Abstract

Throughout his presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised to implement a ban on Muslims entering the United States. During his first week in office, he signed Executive Order 13769, effectively blocking entry to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries. A legal battle ensued, in which immigration advocates and several state governments accused the Trump administration of religious discrimination. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court. In Trump v. Hawaii (2017), the Supreme Court decided that President Trump‘s ban was well within his executive power.

This thesis sought to answer the question of why the Court upheld such a broad exclusionary measure as President Trump‘s ban. I hypothesized that a history of judicial deference to executive power has enabled the executive branch to implement exclusionary measures. To test this hypothesis, I employed two parallel analyses: 1. An analysis of instances when the executive branch asserted exclusionary powers in periods of crisis. 2. An analysis of the legal precedents in which the Supreme Court grappled with executive exclusionary power throughout these crises.

Through these analyses, I found that the Court‘s decision in Trump v. Hawaii was a result of a long history of deference to executive power, specifically pertaining to exclusionary measures in which the executive branch attributes exclusion to national security justifications. Throughout crises such as World War II, the Red Scare, and the War on Terror, the executive branch has criminalized and targeted "foreigners" and non-citizens, imposing exclusionary measures against them. In response, the judicial branch gave into the crisis-related justifications for exclusion, exhibiting a pattern of deference to executive power that culminated in the Trump v. Hawaii decision.

The core analysis is followed by an exploration of successful challenges presented by advocates in the district courts and the potential of district courts to check executive power.

The conclusions of this thesis hold several key implications for U.S. policy. First, the results of this thesis elevate the importance of judicial reform in establishing an executive-judicial power balance that is crucial to the proper function of democracy and that prevents unilateral executive action in exclusion. Second, the results also reveal the need for legislation that creates long-term limits on the executive‘s ability to unilaterally implement exclusionary policy.