Maybe we are not supposed to think this way, but let me note the following:
- Suppose the Trump administration made a controversial immigration policy move, and it got into the U.S. courts.
- Suppose the case came before an Obama appointee.
- Suppose the plaintiffs , who objected to the policy, were from the same nation that was the judge's birthplace.
Suppose, in short, a Democratic judge was asked to rule for the President and against the interests of his former countrymen. Would his decision go against both grains?
In a decision that echoes Chief Justice Roberts' statement that there are no Trump judges and no Obama judges, D.C. federal judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee who was born in India, did just that.
He ruled that President Trump's efforts to rein in the H-1B program were legally sound, and that the plaintiffs (most of if not all, residents of India) were wrong in their attempt to undermine the president's H-1B policy.
Thus the judge put aside both his (presumed) political leanings and his ethnic background in his ruling. Perhaps a headache for that judge, but a good signal from the judicial branch.
The case was reported by Breitbart (which did not make the comments I made above) on September 5, stating:
The decision is a big setback for the Fortune 500 companies objecting to Trump's June 22 proclamation. The proclamation temporarily bars the entry of foreign workers via the huge H-1B, J-1, H-2B, and L-1 labor pipelines, which keep roughly two million compliant and cheap contract workers in jobs needed by unemployed blue collar and white collar Americans.
The case is Panda et al., Plaintiffs, v. Chad Wolf, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security. The case number, in the PACER system, is 1:20-01907-KBJ.