The first big test of America’s institutions under Donald Trump

AMERICA, along with its new president, is getting a crash course in the role of the federal judiciary. On February 3rd, one week after Donald Trump issued an executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries and suspending America’s refugee programme, a federal district court in Seattle temporarily halted Mr Trump’s plan. Judge James Robart said there is “no support” for the government’s argument that the ban made America safer. Four days later, at least two members of a three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seemed unimpressed when the government challenged Mr Robart’s ruling. For now, America remains open to permanent residents, visa-holders and refugees seeking its shores—and Mr Trump must grapple with the unfamiliar feeling of not getting his way. 

The battle over the stymied plan—which the White House insists is wholly different from the “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” that Mr Trump first announced on the campaign trail in December 2015—proceeds on two parallel tracks. In the courts, judges and lawyers wrangle over an array of legal questions involving constitutional...