Amicus Curiae Brief — Trump v. Int'l Refugee Assistance Project, 138 S. Ct. 50 (2017) (No. 16-1436)

| Style: ai, us

FILED

JUN -9 2017

OFFICE OF THE CLERK

—

Nos. 16-1436, 16A1190

Bn the

Supreme Court of the United States

DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE

UNITED STATES, ET AL., Petitioners,

—y

v.

INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE ASSISTANCE

PROJECT, ET AL., Respondents.

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR «HE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNOPPOSED MOTION FOR LEAVE AND BRIEF

OF AMICUS CURIAE AMERICAN CENTER FOR

LAW AND JUSTICE IN SUPPORT OF

PETITIONERS’ STAY APPLICATION AND

CERTIORARI PETITION

EDWARD L. WHITE III

ERIK M. ZIMMERMAN

AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW

AND JUSTICE

3001 Plymouth Rd., Ste. 203

Ann Arbor, MI 48105

FRANCIS J. MANION

GEOFFREY R. SURTEES

AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW

AND JUSTICE

6375 New Hope Rd.

New Hope, KY 40052

Counsel for amicus curiae

JAY ALAN SEKULOW

Counsel of Record

STUART J. ROTH

COLBY M. MAY

ANDRE’¥ J. EKONOMOU

JORDAN SEKULOW

CRAIG L. PARSHALL

MATTHEW R. CLARK

BENJAMIN P. SISNEY

AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW

AND JUSTICE

201 Maryland Ave., NE

Washington, DC 20002

Tel.: 202-546-8890

Email: sekulow@aclj.org

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

UNOPPOSED MOTION FOR LEAVE TO

FILE BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF STAY

APPLICATION AND CERTIORARI PETITION...... ]

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I. The Fourth Circuit’s decision conflicts

with this Court’s precedent because it

failed to review the Executive Order

under the deferential standards

applicable to the immigration

policymaking and enforcement decisions

of the political branches, which the

I des ebeiantnniaseveseers 2

A. Judicial review of the immigration-

related actions of the political

I ir III istic cesddssestcnsassiossecsones 3

B. The Executive Order is constitutional

under this Court’s deferential

standards applicable to constitutional

challenges to the political branches’

immigration-related actions...................60..06: 5

Il. The Executive Order is constitutional

even under a traditional Establishment

NE STE RESTS LONE, ST 7

IED iin iAiciscinidisimanccsvesssseutinitenverscustbantersetions 15

i]

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Supreme Court Cases

Bd. of Educ. v. Mergens,

SD UE. SE Ee iivcciensencetsicn.ck ene 1,12

Bowen v. Kendrick,

Ge TI, Pe i incwecvevencisusistissindhainiua 14

Clinton v. Jones,

Fee CAB Ge CED vtevececcnvicesisianathciscaessanuede 12

Edwards v. Aguillard,

GS WF. Be Ce cvecsocecenansasonastiattddaaantackmanee 13

FEC v. Wisc. Right to Life,

ae _, , RTT Remi erie 1

Fiallo v. Bell,

Se SA Fe Ce Oe ves vnccsitienteiidin bee 3, 6, 7

Harisiades v. Shaughnessy,

ED ie ET CE aniicesncocsnnsecainesdtieaaemmcumnia 4

Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez,

UE CF UN Ci tsccectcnsnnacocssseorseeeieeesceaen 4

Kerry v. Din,

BO Bes CR, RT Ge vvcccceceesticdiskecicincccascnan 6

Kleindienst v. Mandel,

SF Rs FT CR FID steep essnccssreinsiciniinaemmeaia 5, 6, 7

il}

Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free Sch.

I ME ED os sv cncccccnsaseseseuceoceuessensces l

Landon v. Plasencia,

a scpsbncesecncssine 3, 4

Lemon v. Kurtzman,

I I I BD so .cnccesscssccececcecencessenen 8. 10. 14

Lynch v. Donnelly,

SE 14

McConnell v. FEC,

i cesigueecones 1

McCreary Cnty. v. ACLU,

SN IIE... sc cancceccecccsscncccccnces 10, 11, 12

Mueller v. Allen,

a sen csumboennonee 12

Pleasant Grove v. Summum,

Nee TT cc sccessuesceucneen I

Republican Party of Minn. v. White,

a sca usenesenesswcnssoes 12

Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei,

ss cca panic sesbsencooncouves eee 3

United States v. Texas,

Ss savenebaneness 1

Wallace v. Jaffree,

Nn . cnconsarasnseacson 13

iV

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer,

EE CC: III cc shicencncetundcodiehecnstbnaadindventevadians 4

Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. Kerry,

I i laa 4

Other Cases

ACLU of Ky. v. Rowan Cnty.,

513 F. Supp. 2d 889 (E.D. Ky. 2007).................. 11

ACLU of N.J. v. Schundler,

af | fo 4 | omer 10

Int'l Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump,

2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 9109 (4th Cir. 2017)........ 2

Rajah v. Mukasey,

544 F.3d 437 (2d Cir. 2006) ........0..0-ccccccessecceee. 8, 9

Roark v. S. Iron R-1 Sch. Dist.,

578 F.3d 656 (8th Cir. 2009)............................... 10

Sarsour v. Trump,

2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43596 (E.D. Va. 2017)... 10

Washington v. Trump,

847 F.3d 1151 (9th Cir. 2017)...................0...0088 1,2

Washington v. Trump,

ca Te CUE I SINE Wiccan scioriestasaseiinesiiinainionten 7

\

Constitutions, Statutes, Executive Orders, and

Regulations

| RRA ES Rae 4

Executive Order No. 13,780, 82 Fed.

eg ff 6 | ly, eres: passim

I a a asm passim

Other Authorities

Mark Krikorian, Comey: 15 Percent of Terror

Cases Came as Refugees, www.national-

review.com/corner/447423/comey-terror-

ER ed WEA Se aa OS TS 14

Transcript of Testimony of James Comey,

www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/

wp/2017/05/03/read-the-full-testimony-of-fbi-

director-james-comey-in-which-he-discusses-

clinton-email-investigation.........................cc0e0008 14

1

UNOPPOSED MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE

BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF STAY APPLICATION

AND CERTIORARI PETITION

Amicus American Center for Law and Justice

respectfully moves for leave of Court to file the

accompanying brief in support of Petitioners’

application for a stay and petition for a writ of

certiorari concerning a _ preliminary injunction

barring enforcement of Section 2(c) of Executive

Order No. 13,780, 82 Fed. Reg. 13,209 (Mar. 9, 2017)

(“EO”). Counsel for all parties have been notified of

this brief and consent to its filing.

STATEMENT OF INTEREST!

The American Center for Law and Justice

(“ACLJ”) is an organization dedicated to the defense

of constitutional liberties secured by law. Counsel for

the ACLJ have presented oral argument,

represented parties, and submitted amicus briefs

before this Court and other courts around the

country in cases involving the Establishment Clause

and immigration law. See, e.g., United States uv.

Texas, 136 S. Ct. 2271 (2016); Pleasant Grove uv.

Summum, 555 U.S. 460 (2009); FEC v. Wisc. Right to

Life, 551 U.S. 449 (2007); McConnell v. FEC, 540

U.S. 93 (2003); Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches

Union Free Sch. Dist., 508 U.S. 384 (1993); Bd. of

Educ. v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226 (1990); Washington v.

' No counsel for any party authored this brief in whole or in

part, and no entity or person, aside from amicus curiae, its

members, and its counsel, made any monetary contribution

toward the preparation or submission of this brief.

2

Trump, 847 F.3d 1151 (9th Cir. 2017); Intl Refugee

Assistance Project v. Trump, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS

9109 (4th Cir. 2017).

The ACLJ has actively defended, through

advocacy and litigation, immigration-related policies

that protect American citizens. This brief is

supported by members of the ACLJ’s Committee to

Defend Our National Security from Terror, which

represents more than 230,000 Americans who

support the President’s Executive Order Protecting

the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the

United States.

ARGUMENT

This brief addresses the challenged Executive

Order’s constitutionality under the Establishment

Clause of the First Amendment, which is an issue

that has a direct bearing on the various factors

considered when a stay application or certiorari

petition is filed.

1. The Fourth Circuit’s decision conflicts with

this Court’s precedent because it failed to

review the Executive Order under the

deferential standards applicable to the

immigration policymaking and enforcement

decisions of the political branches, which

the Order satisfies.

The United States Court of Appeals for the

Fourth Circuit accepted Respondents’ invitation to

treat this case as if it were a _ run-of-the-mill

Establishment Clause case. It is not. The cases that

the court of appeals primarily relied upon, which

green-lighted a detailed inquiry into the primary

purpose of the government’s actions, involved factual

contexts such as the public display of the Ten

Commandments. See, e.g., App. to Pet. Cert. 47a-48a

(S.Ct. No. 16-1436).

In stark contrast, the case at hand involves the

special context of an EO concerning the entry into

the United States of refugees and nationals of six

countries of particular concern, enacted pursuant to

the President’s constitutional and _ statutory

authority. When this Court has_ considered

constitutional challenges to immigration-related

actions of this sort, it has declined to subject those

actions to the same level of scrutiny applied to non-

immigration-related actions, choosing instead to take

a considerably more deferential approach. The EO is

valid under this standard.

A. Judicial review of the immigration-

related actions of the political branches

is deferential.

This Court has “long recognized the power to

expel or exclude aliens as a fundamental sovereign

attribute exercised by the Government’s political

departments largely immune from judicial control.”

Fiallo v. Bell, 480 U.S. 787, 792 (1977) (quoting

Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel. Mezei, 345 U.S.

206, 210 (1953)). Indeed, “an alien seeking initial

admission to the United States requests a privilege

and has no constitutional rights regarding his

application, for the power to admit or exclude aliens

is a sovereign prerogative.” Landon v. Plasencia, 459

qd

U.S. 21, 32 (1982). Moreover, the Constitution “is not

a suicide pact,” Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372

U.S. 144, 160 (1963), and the President has broad

national security powers that may be exercised

through immigration restrictions. See Harisiades v.

Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 588-89 (1952).

Not only does the Fourth Circuit’s decision

undercut the President’s national security powers, it

also undermines the considered judgment of

Congress that

[w]henever the President finds that the entry

of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the

United States would be detrimental to the

interests of the United States, he may by

proclamation, and for such period as he shall

deem necessary, suspend the entry of all

aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or

nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of

aliens any restrictions he may deem to be

appropriate.

8 U.S.C. § 1182(f) (2012). Where, as here, a

President’s action is authorized by Congress, “his

authority is at its maximum, for it includes all that

he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress

can delegate.” Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. Kerry,

135 S. Ct. 2076, 2084 (2015) (quoting Youngstown

Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 635 (1952)

(Frankfurter, J., concurring)). The EO falls squarely

within the President’s constitutional and statutory

authority.

B. The Executive Order is constitutional

under this Court’s deferential standards

applicable to constitutional challenges to

the political branches’ immigration-

related actions.

In Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 770

(1972), the Court rejected a First Amendment

challenge to the Attorney General’s decision to

decline to grant a waiver that would have allowed a

Belgian scholar to enter the country on a visa in

order to speak to American professors and students.

The Court held that “the power to exclude aliens is

‘inherent in sovereignty, necessary for maintaining

normal international relations and defending the

country against foreign encroachments and dangers--

a power to be exercised exclusively by the political

branches of government.” Jd. at 765 (citations

omitted). The Court concluded by stating that

plenary congressional power to make policies

and rules for exclusion of aliens has long been

firmly established. In the case of an alien

excludable under § 212 (a)(28), Congress has

delegated conditional exercise of this power to

the Executive. We hold that when the

Executive exercises this power negatively on

the basis of a facially legitimate and bona fide

reason, the courts will neither look behind the

exercise of that discretion, nor test it by

balancing its justification against the First

Amendment interests of those who seek

personal communication with the applicant.

6

Id. at 769-70; see also Kerry v. Din, 135 S. Ct. 2128,

2139-41 (2015) (Kennedy, J., concurring) (the

government's statement that a visa application was

denied due to suspected involvement with terrorist

activities “satisflied] Mandel’s ‘facially legitimate

and bona fide’ standard”).

Similarly, in Fiallo, the Court rejected a

challenge to statutory provisions that granted

preferred immigration status to most aliens who are

the children or parents of United States citizens or

lawful permanent residents, except for iulegitimate

children seeking that status by virtue of their

biological fathers, and the fathers themselves. 430

U.S. at 788-90. The Court stated:

At the outset, it is important to underscore the

limited scope of judicial inquiry into

immigration legislation. This Court has

repeatedly emphasized that ‘over no

conceivable subject is the legislative power of

Congress more complete than it is over” the

admission of aliens.

Id. at 792 (citations omitted). The Court noted that it

had previously “resolved similar challenges to

immigration legislation based on other constitutional

rights of citizens, and has rejected the suggestion

that more searching judicial scrutiny is required.” Jd.

at 794. Additionally, the Court stated, “[wJe can see

no reason to review the broad congressional policy

choice at issue here under a more exacting standard

than was applied in Kleindienst v. Mandel, a First

Amendment case.” Jd. at 795. The Court emphasized

that “it is not the judicial role in cases of this sort to

probe and test the justifications for the legislative

decision.” Jd. at 799.

Although this Court’s precedent establishes that

courts should not second-guess the wisdom of, or

evidentiary support for, the political branches’

decision-making concerning immigration, the Fourth

Circuit did exactly that. Contrary to what that court

held, the legality of executive orders related to

immigration does not turn on a judicial guessing

game of what the President’s subjective motives were

at the time; rather, Mandel, Fiallo, and other cases

dictate that courts should rarely look past the face of

such orders. See Washington v. Trump, 853 F.3d 933,

939 n.6 (9th Cir. 2017) (Bybee, J., dissenting from

denial of reconsideration en banc) (the panel’s

“unreasoned assumption that courts should simply

plop Establishment Clause cases from the domestic

context over to the foreign affairs context ignores the

realities of our world”). The EO is valid under this

standard. It is closely tethered to well-established

discretionary powers vested in the Executive Branch

by the Constitution and statute. Respondents’

objection to the EO is a policy dispute that should be

resolved by the political branches.

ll. The Executive Order is constitutional even

under a traditional Establishment Clause

analysis.

Consideration of the EO must take into account

the deferential nature of judicial review of

immigration-related actions (as noted previously).

Nevertheless, the EO i: constitutional even under

non-immigration-related Establishment Clause

jurisprudence.

The EO satisfies the “purpose prong” of Lemon v.

Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), which asks whether

the challenged government action has “a secular

legislative purpose.” Jd. at 612-13. Here, the EO’s

predominant purpose is its stated purpose, namely,

protecting national security.

The EO is similar in principle to the National

Security Entry Exit Registration System

(“NSEERS’”), implemented after the terrorist attacks

of September 11, 2001, which was upheld by

numerous federal courts. Rajah v. Mukasey, 544 F.3d

427, 438-39 (2d Cir. 2008) (citing cases). Under this

system, the Attorney General imposed special

requirements upon foreign nationals present in the

United States who were from specified countries. The

first group of countries designated by the Attorney

General included Iran, Libya, Sudan and Syria, and

a total of twenty-four Muslim majority countries and

North Korea were eventually designated. /d. at 433

n.3.

In one illustrative NSEERS case, the United

States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

rejected arguments that are strikingly similar to the

arguments accepted by the Fourth Circuit here:

There was a rational national security basis

for the Program. The terrorist attacks on

September 11, 2001 were facilitated by the lax

enforcement of immigration laws. The

Program was [rationally] designed to monitor

9

more closely aliens from certain countries

selected on the basis of national security

criteria. ...

To be sure, the Program did select countries

that were, with the exception of North Korea,

predominantly Muslim. .. . However, one

major threat of terrorist attacks comes from

radical Islamic groups. The September 11

attacks were facilitated by violations of

immigration laws by aliens from

predominantly Muslim nations. The Program

was clearly tailored to those facts. .. . The

program did not target only Muslims: non-

Muslims from the designated countries were

subject to registration. There is therefore no

basis for petitioners’ claim.

Id. at 438-49 (emphasis added) (citation omitted).

Similarly, the EO at issue here is constitutional.

There is ample justification for the determination of

multiple administrations that the six designated

countries pose a particular risk to American national

security. The EO does not single out Muslims for

disfavored treatment. Rather, the countless millions

of non-American Muslims who live outside the six

countries of particular concern are not restricted by

the EO. Neither does the EO limit its application to

Muslims in the six designated countries; instead, it

applies to all citizens of the six enumerated countries

irrespective of their faith.

Furthermore, the fact that enforcement of a

previous order—which was substantively different

10

from the present EO in numerous ways—was

preliminarily enjoined on an expedited basis does not

support the Fourth Circuit’s decision here. Under the

Fourth Circuit’s analysis, any hypothetical future

immigration-related orders issued by the current

President will be irredeemably tainted by the alleged

subjective, predominantly anti-Muslim intent of the

President and his surrogates, which runs contrary to

this Court’s admonition that the government’s “past

actions” do not “forever taint any effort .. . to deal

with the subject matter.” McCreary Cnty. v. ACLU,

545 U.S. 844, 874 (2005).

The many substantive differences between the

prior executive order and the existing EO constitute

“genuine changes in constitutionally significant

conditions” that cured any actual or perceived

Establishment Clause deficiencies. See id.; Sarsour

v. Trump, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43596, at *33 (E.D.

Va. 2017) (“[T]he substantive revisions reflected in

[the EO at issue here] have reduced the probative

value of the President’s statements to the point that

it is no longer likely that Plaintiffs can succeed on

their claim that the predominant purpose of [the EO]

2 See also ACLU of N.cJ. v. Schundler, 168 F.3d 92, 105 (3d Cir.

1999) (Alito, J.) (“The mere fact that Jersey City’s first display

was held to violate the Establishment Clause is plainly

insufficient to show that the second display lacked ‘a secular

legislative purpose,’ or that it was ‘intended to convey a

message of endorsement or disapproval of religion.”’) (citations

omitted); Roark v. S. Iron R-1 Sch. Dist., 573 F.3d 556 (8th Cir.

2009) (“Another reason we reject the district court’s Lemon

analysis is that . . . [it] would preclude the District from ever

creating a limited public forum in which religious materials

may be distributed in a constitutionally neutral manner.”).

11

is to discriminate against Muslims based on their

religion and that [the EO] is a pretext or a sham for

that purpose.”).

The EO was narrowly crafted to address concerns

raised during litigation over the prior order, with the

secular goal of protecting national security in mind.

Addressing actual or perceived flaws in previous

iterations of a law or policy, in order to bolster the

likelihood that it will be upheld in litigation, is itself

a valid secular purpose. See, e.g., ACLU of Ky. v.

Rowan Cnty., 513 F. Supp. 2d 889, 904 (E.D. Ky.

2007) (in Establishment Clause cases, changing a

policy in “an attempt to avoid litigation .. . is an

acceptable purpose”).

Moreover, the Fourth Circuit’s decision to

sidestep the EO’s obvious secular purposes by

focusing on comments made by then-candidate

Trump, or one of his advisors, is flawed for at least

three reasons.

First, this Court has stated that the primary

purpose inquiry concerning statutes may include

consideration of the “plain meaning of the statute's

words, enlightened by their context and the

contemporaneous legislative history [and] the

historical context of the statute .. . and the specific

sequence of events leading to [its] passage.”

McCreary Cnty., 545 U.S. at 862; see also id. (noting

that the inquiry is limited to consideration of “the

‘text, legislative history, and implementation of the

statute, or comparable official act”) (citation

omitted). Although the Fourth Circuit relied upon

quotes made by then-candidate Trump and

12

individuals holding some non-governmental position

within his political campaign, comments made by a

private citizen while a candidate for public office (or

his or her advisors) while on the campaign trail are

not “official” government acts, and do not constitute

“contemporaneous legislative history.” Id.; cf. Clinton

v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 686 (1997) (alleged

misconduct occurring before Bill Clinton became

President was not an “official” act). Indeed, “one

would be naive not to recognize that campaign

promises are—by long democratic tradition—the

least binding form of human commitment.”

Republican Party of Minn. v. White, 53€ U.S. 765,

780 (2002).

Second, the Fourth Circuit's reliance upon

purported evidence of a subjective, personal anti-

Muslim bias of the President and some of his

advisors is improper because “what is relevant is the

legislative purpose of the statute, not the possibly

religious motives of the legislators who enacted the

law.” Bd. of Educ. v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226, 249

(1990) (plurality opinion) (emphasis added). The

Fourth Circuit engaged in the kind of “judicial

psychoanalysis of a drafter’s heart of hearts” that is

foreclosed by this Court’s precedent. McCreary Cnty.,

545 U.S. at 862. The EO, on its face, serves secular

purposes, and no amount of rehashing of

miscellaneous campaign trail commentary can

change that. A foray into the malleable arena of

legislative history is not a requirement in all

Establishment Clause cases. See, e.g., Mueller uv.

Allen, 463 U.S. 388, 394-95 (1983) (noting the Court’s

“reluctance to attribute unconstitutional motives to

the [government], particularly when a plausible

13

secular purpose . .. may be discerned from the face of

the statute”); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 74

(1985) (O’Connor, J., concurring) (inquiry into the

government's purpose should be “deferential and

limited”).

As Judge Niemeyer explained in his dissenting

opinion in the instant action, the majority’s use of

campaign statements to convert the facially neutral

EO into an Establishment Clause violation was

improper. The “Supreme Court has never applied the

Establishment Clause to matters of national security

and foreign affairs.” App. 173a (Niemeyer, J.,

dissenting). In the few cases in which the Court

invalidated government actions based on a religious

purpose, for example, Edwards v. Aguillard, 482

U.S. 578 (1987), “the Court found the government

action inexplicable but for a religious purpose, and it

looked to extrinsic evidence only to confirm its

suspicion, prompted by the face of the action, that it

had religious origins.” App. 173a-174a (Niemeyer, J.,

dissenting). Those cases are manifestly

distinguishable from the EO, which “is framed and

enforced without reference to religion, and the

government's proffered national security

justifications . . . are consistent with the stated

purposes of the [EO].” Jd. 175a. “Conflicting extrinsic

statements made prior to the [EO]’s enactment

surely cannot supplant its facially legitimate

national security purpose.” Jd.

3 Further evidence to dispel the notion that the EO 1s a cover for

anti-Muslim discrimination is found in the May 3, 2017,

testimony by then-FBI Director James Comey before the Senate

Judiciary Committee on FBI Oversight. Comey testified that

(Text of footnote continues on following page.)

14

Finally, the mere suggestion of a_ possible

religious or anti-religious motive, mined from past

comments of a political candidate or his supporters,

and intermixed with various secular purposes, is not

enough to doom government action (along with all

subsequent attempts to address the same subject

matter). “[A]ll that Lemon requires” is_ that

government action have “a secular purpose,” not that

its purpose be “exclusively secular,” and a policy is

invalid under this test only if it “was motivated

wholly by religious considerations.” Lynch ov.

Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 680-81 & n.6 (1984)

(emphasis added); see also Bowen v. Kendrick, 487

U.S. 589, 602 (1988) (“[A] court may invalidate a

statute only if it is motivated wholly by an

impermissible purpose ....”). The EO clearly serves

secular purposes and, therefore, it satisfies Lemon’s

purpose test.

the FBI has over 2000 “violent extremist investigations” and

“about 300 of them [roughly 15%] are people who came to the

United States as refugees.” Transcript of Testimony of James

Comey, www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/

05/03/read-the-full-testimony-of-fbi-director-james-comey-in-

which-he-discusses-clinton-email-investigation/; see also Mark

Krikorian, Comey: 15 Percent of Terror Cases Came as Refugees,

www.nationalreview.com/corner/44 7423/comey-terror-cases-

refugees.

CONCLUSION

The stay application and certiorari

should be granted.

EDWARD L. WHITE III

ERIK M. ZIMMERMAN

AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW

AND JUSTICE

3001 Plymouth Rd.

Ste. 203

Ann Arbor, M1 48105

FRANCIS J. MANION

GEOFFREY R. SURTEES

AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW

AND JUSTICE

6375 New Hope Rd.

New Hope, KY 40052

June 9, 2017

petition

Respectfully submitted,

JAY ALAN SEKULOW

Counsel of Record

STUART J. ROTH

COLBY M. MAY

ANDREW J. EKONOMOU

JORDAN SEKULOW

CRAIG L. PARSHALL

MATTHEW R. CLARK

BENJAMIN P. SISNEY

AMERICAN CENTER FOR LAW

AND JUSTICE

201 Maryland Ave., NE

Washington, DC 20002

Tel.: 202-546-8890

Email: sekulow@aclj.org

Counsel for amicus curiae