Washington, D.C. (June 26, 2018) — This morning the Supreme Court released its long-awaited opinion on the most recent version of the “Trump Travel Ban,” concluding that the President acted constitutionally and within the law in all respects. The American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) had filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of seven national security experts (Andrew C. McCarthy, Center for Security Policy, Frank Gaffney, Dr. Robert J. Shillman, Admiral James “Ace” Lyons, Jr., U.S. Navy Retired, Lieutenant General William G. Boykin, U.S. Army Retired, and Ambassador Henry F. Cooper) to support the President’s Proclamation setting forth the travel ban.
The AFLC-authored brief argues that the President’s most recent executive proclamation suspending entry and creating a more rigorous entry vetting process for immigrants and travelers from certain high-risk countries (Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and Somalia) was a constitutional and statutorily permitted first step before implementing a more thorough-going “extreme vetting” of potential jihadists. The brief lays out the policy and legal basis for an extreme vetting of Islamists who advocate or adhere to a political ideology predicated upon Sharia supremacism. The brief argues that it is classic and extant Islamic law that is the threat doctrine underpinning jihad by the various Islamic groups, whether they be Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, or the Muslim Brotherhood.
AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel David Yerushalmi, who was described by The New York Times as one of the central leaders of the anti-Sharia movement in the United States, explained,
“Our brief on behalf of the national security experts was clear: the travel ban was unquestionably constitutional and lawful. On this point, the Supreme Court majority agreed. We argued further, however, that as a matter of policy and national security, the travel ban did not go far enough. Jihadists from failed Muslim states and from other nation-states have one thing in common: a devout adherence to Sharia, or Islamic law, which they understand calls for a global caliphate, the forced imposition of Shariah, and death to anyone who might oppose an Islamic world order. Our brief sought to bring coherence to a public debate floundering on the shoals of snowflake sensitivities and political correctness.”
Robert Muise, AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel, added,
“The AFLC brief argued that the president has not only the authority for a travel ban, he has the constitutional and statutory authority to impose an ideological vetting process to screen for Sharia-adherent Islamists. We are pleased that our amici brief has successfully launched the all too important policy discussion at the highest levels of government. This discussion turns the lawfare of the Islamists and Progressives in on itself and reshapes and indeed opens up new fronts on the legal and policy battlefields enabling those who cherish western civilization and our constitutional republic to take an offensive and ultimately rational posture into the lawfare and policy trenches.”
As one piece of the evidentiary framework for the brief, AFLC cites to a relatively recent peer-reviewed study, co-authored by Mr. Yerushalmi, revealing the statistically relevant correlation between sharia adherence at U.S. mosques and the propensity to preach and to propagate violent jihad against the West. Â The study was first published by the Middle East Quarterly and subsequently in expanded form in Perspectives on Terrorism.