The idea of not admitting paupers and deporting immigrants who've become a "public charge" is traditional in America, and embodied in law. It was mentioned in Peter Brimelow's Alien Nation that enforcement, by the 90's, had become a dead letter, and one of the earliest things I read on the site was Whatever Happened To Deporting Immigrants As a Public Charge?, by James Edwards, May 19, 2001.
Trump has tried to enforce it, but various judges have been blocking it. Steve Sailer described one of those blocks as Federal Judge: The Huddled Masses Poem Isn't, Technically, the Law of the Land, But, Still, I'm Going to Rule as if It Were the Zeroth Amendment.
Obviously, this is pure kritarchy. The judges are just making stuff up for political reasons, and as usual, you can tell this from who appointed them:
The latest version makes this clear:
A panel of federal judges in New York on Wednesday denied the Trump administration’s request to begin a program aimed at cutting back benefits for immigrants while a lawsuit over the plan plays out in court.
The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit keeps in place a nationwide halt on President Trump’s "public charge" rule that links immigrants’ legal status to their use of public benefits.
The three judges on the panel are all Democratic appointees. Judge Amalya L. Kearse was appointed to the bench by President Carter, Guido Calabresi by President Clinton, and Susan L. Carney by President Obama.
The order came after the Trump administration sought to implement the program while it appeals a U.S.-wide injunction entered by a federal district judge in New York.
Two similar injunctions were lifted last month by the Richmond, Va.-based 4th Circuit and the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit. Despite those decisions, however, the injunction from New York, which falls under the 2nd Circuit, continues to apply across the country.
Appeals court refuses to lift injunction on immigrant 'public charge' rule, by John Kruzel, TheHill.com, January 8, 2019
The fact that one judge with one injunction can block the entire Federal government is wrong, and it's a fairly recent legal development. It's not just me that thinks that. Notre Dame Law Professor Samuel Bray has written a lot about the "National Injunction" on the Volokh Conspiracy blog.
In 2017, Jeff Sessions was attacked for saying he didn't think one judge "on an island in the Pacific," i. e. Hawaiian Judge Derrick Kahala Watson, should be able to endanger the whole country by blocking Trump's travel ban.
He defended himself ably, pointing out that
SESSIONS: Well, I think that was a perfectly correct statement. We have some 700 federal judges. One of them has now stopped the President of the United States, who is briefed daily from the Department of Defense, the CIA, the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, on the dangers and threats we face.
He's issued a perfectly reasonable executive order that delays six countries for 90 days from being brought -- immigrants coming here because we cannot vet them.
(CROSSTALK)
SESSIONS: They are state sponsors of terrorism and three are states with terrorists --
VELSHI: Sir, I think the issue -- the issue is -- the issue is, as a former U.S. attorney and a former U.S. senator and as a lawyer, you sort of diminished a federal judge and you made some reference to somebody being in the middle of the Pacific, suggesting that if they're not on the mainland United States, it's not as important.
SESSIONS: I wasn't diminishing the judge or the island of Hawaii, that beautiful place. Give me a break. I was just making the point that’s very real, one judge, out of 700, has stopped the President of the United States from doing what he believes is necessary to protect our safety and security.
I believe it is constitutionally sound. I believe he has explicit statutory authority to do this act. We expect to prevail on appeal.
It was upheld on appeal—see Supreme Court Upholds Travel Ban, Shows Various Judges Who Attacked It WERE Crazy—but it shouldn't have been blocked in the first place.
