WASHINGTON — The controversy over President Donald Trump’s immigration order escalated into a full-blown crisis yesterday, with the American leader firing the government’s chief lawyer for defiance and faced fresh legal challenges over his decree.
In an extraordinary public showdown, Mr Trump removed the Acting Attorney-General Sally Yates after she publicly questioned the constitutionality of his move to halt the entire United States refugee programme and banned all entries from seven Muslim-majority nations for 90 days.
This came as two Democratic-leaning states, Massachusetts and Washington, signalled they would attack the policy in court, and a Muslim advocacy group filed a lawsuit calling it an unconstitutional religious test.
The clash on Monday night between Mr Trump and Ms Yates, a career prosecutor and Democratic appointee, laid bare the growing discord and dissent surrounding an executive order.
Ms Yates’ firing, in a written statement released just hours after she went public with her concerns, also served as a warning to other administration officials that Mr Trump is prepared to terminate those who refuse to carry out his orders.
In a separate decision announced without explanation by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, Mr Trump also replaced acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Daniel Ragsdale.
The president replaced Ms Yates with Dana Boente, the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, saying that he would serve as attorney general until Congress acts to confirm Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. In his first act in his new role, Mr Boente announced that he was rescinding Ms Yates’ order.
Monday’s events have transformed the confirmation of Mr. Sessions into a referendum on Mr Trump’s immigration order. He’s expected to be confirmed Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee and could face a vote within days in the full Senate.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Mr Sessions should be required to address questions about his independence from the White House before being voted on, as Democratic concerns over his nomination intensified in the aftermath of Ms Yates’s firing.
“The attorney general should be loyal and pledge fidelity to the law, not the White House,” Mr Schumer said in a statement. “The fact that this administration doesn’t understand that is chilling.”
Mr Trump chose to continue his feud with Democrats Tuesday morning on Twitter, needling Mr Schumer for the second day about appearing to fight back tears at a news conference in which he pledged to fight the new policy.
“Nancy Pelosi and Fake Tears Chuck Schumer held a rally at the steps of The Supreme Court and mic did not work (a mess)-just like Dem party!” Mr Trump wrote. “When will the Democrats give us our Attorney General and rest of Cabinet! They should be ashamed of themselves! No wonder D.C. doesn’t work!”
The ouster of Ms Yates intensified the drama and confusion that has been building since Mr Trump issued the ban on Friday. It caps three days in which incoming international travelers were temporarily detained, protests sprung up around airports and many congressional Republicans criticised the White House over the order. Former President Barack Obama broke with tradition by entering a dispute with his successor by publicly backing the demonstrations.
In Washington State, Governor Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson, both Democrats, announced that they would file a lawsuit seeking to gut Mr Trump’s order, calling it a blunt attack on the Muslim faith that would damage businesses and individuals in the state. The Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, also a Democrat, intends to join a lawsuit this week by the American Civil Liberties Union against Mr Trump’s policy.
The ACLU says Mr Trump’s order violates the US Constitution’s establishment clause, which prohibits the government from favouring a specific religious faith.
“Trump has made clear, in a nationally broadcast television interview, that it was designed to privilege Christians. That’s blatantly unconstitutional,” said David Cole, the group’s national legal director.
In addition to the two state actions, the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed suit in Virginia on behalf of 27 Muslims residing in the US, including some American citizens but also people who could be denied re-entry to the country if they leave while Mr. Trump’s ban is in place.
As legal challenges piled up in courthouses, Ms Yates said in a memo Monday she was not convinced it was lawful or consistent with the agency’s obligation ``to stand for what is right.’’
Mr Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, soon followed with a statement accusing Ms Yates of having ``betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States.’’
“Ms Yates is an Obama administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration,” the statement said.
Ms Yates’s order was a remarkable rebuke by a government official to a sitting president, and it recalled the so-called Saturday Night Massacre in 1973, when President Richard M. Nixon fired his attorney general and deputy attorney general for refusing to dismiss the special prosecutor in the Watergate case.
This led to a constitutional crisis that ended when Robert H. Bork, the solicitor general, acceded to Mr. Nixon’s order and fired Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor.
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