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TEXT ON SCREEN:
CONGRATULATIONS, YOU’VE JUST SUED THE PRESIDENT

ARCHIVAL (CNN, 3-6-17):
NEWS REPORT: Take 2 of the Trump administration’s controversial travel ban, six nations on it this time, not seven…

NARRATION: President Trump’s new executive order comes after his January ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries was challenged in courts across the nation and put on hold.  

ARCHIVAL:
NEWS REPORT: The judge in Seattle overruled his controversial travel ban. . ..

NARRATION: The lawsuit that launched that challenge first began not in a courtroom, but a classroom, when Yale Law School professor Michael Wishnie got a call from a former student.

MICHAEL J. WISHNIE (YALE LAW SCHOOL PROFESSOR): Becca Heller called my cellphone and said, there is an Iraqi family and they’re being held at J.F.K. and it became clear that part of the response that was necessary was to get into federal court on something called a petition for habeas corpus. I emailed the students and my co-teachers and said, who’s ready to volunteer?

NARRATION: Wishnie’s students were spurred on by a belief that the travelers at J.F.K. Airport were being illegally detained and denied their rights to due process. 

MY KHANH NGO (YALE LAW SCHOOL STUDENT): A bunch of students hopped on the e-mai, we arranged a time to call, and everything just happened. It just snowballed.

MICHAEL J. WISHNIE: By midnight we were humming along working hard to prepare an emergency lawsuit.

MY KHANH NGO: Myself and another student decided to have the late night shift, and I saw an email come out at 5:35: Congratulations, you have officially sued the president.

NARRATION: In many ways, Wishnie was following a road map that he himself had set years earlier when he was a Yale Law student and had filed a similar case with his classmates. 

MICHAEL J. WISHNIE: The same courthouse, the same all nighters by students requesting emergency relief from a judge in Brooklyn, and the same lawyer for the government on the other side – it was very much a replay of what I had seen.

NARRATION: In 1991, Wishnie and his fellow students watched as another group was caught in legal limbo. This time it was Haitians fleeing a coup and seeking asylum in the U.S.

ARCHIVAL (ABC NEWS, NIGHTLINE, 11-27-91):
NEWS REPORT: The Bush Administration is determined to stop the Haitians from making it to the U.S. Instead, they’re being detained in a refugee camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

NARRATION: The students were concerned that refugees with legitimate claims to asylum weren’t being allowed into the United States. They approached their professor, Harold Koh, about filing a lawsuit against the government.

HAROLD HONGJU KOH (YALE LAW SCHOOL PROFESSOR): The Justice Department is very skilled in these areas of law. They can marshal a lot of resources. We only had a couple lawyers and a bunch of students. We worked like maniacs. We became sort of like this implacable, Terminator-like enemy.

MICHAEL J. WISHNIE: This call went out to the law school, we need help. A few hours later I’m on a military transport plane flying to a place I’d never heard of before to meet what were suddenly my clients.

NARRATION: Court battles over the rights of one group of Haitian refugees dragged on for 18 months.

LISA DAUGAARD (YALE LAW SCHOOL, 1992): There was a lot of anger about our people and the idea that they would come to the United States. The idea that non-citizens in some way threaten the well being of people who live here, you know, it was in play then. It is in play now.

NARRATION: A judge ultimately allowed the refugees into the U.S. 

LISA DAUGAARD: What was notable about the court proceedings was that it got in the way of what was otherwise just an unstoppable exercise of executive power. There have to be rules and there have to be limits, and courts are where we sort that out. 

NARRATION: That resonates today as courts across the country have stepped in, temporarily blocking Trump’s January travel ban, which angered the administration.

ARCHIVAL (FOX NEWS, 2-12-17):
STEPHEN MILLER (ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP): This is a judicial usurpation of power.

NARRATION: In response to those legal challenges, the administration revised the travel ban and restated their position.

ARCHIVAL:
JEFF SESSIONS (U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL): Our founders wisely gave the executive branch the authority and the duty to protect the nation. This executive order is a proper exercise of that power.

NARRATION: Civil liberties groups including the A.C.L.U. aren’t backing down. They say the new travel ban is unconstitutional, just like the original.   

MICHAEL J. WISHNIE: Dozens of cases all over the country on this issue will be important predictors of whether the federal judiciary will stand up and will honor our laws, or whether they will bow to the pressures of the moment.

NARRATION: The students from Yale vow to keep fighting.

HAROLD HONGJU KOH: If you’re a lawyer, your goal is to make the law serve justice, not just make the law serve power. 

HAROLD HONGJU KOH (SPEAKING TO STUDENTS): This is your moment.

HAROLD HONGJU KOH: Every generation has a fight, and now we’re fighting for the rule of law.

(END)