President Donald Trump on Sunday suggested the blame for future terrorist attacks would lie at the feet of a judge who blocked his executive order temporarily barring immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US.
In a series of tweets, the president complained about Judge James Robart overturning the ban. His ruling was upheld on Saturday by an appeals court in San Francisco.
“Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!” Trump wrote.
“I have instructed Homeland Security to check people coming into our country VERY CAREFULLY. The courts are making the job very difficult!” he added.
Sunday’s tweets were the latest in Trump’s series of public barbs directed at the Seattle judge, a former President George W. Bush appointee who argued that the government did not effectively make its legal case for singling out the seven named countries.
The president referred to him as a “so-called judge” on Saturday, predicting that the ruling would eventually be overturned by a higher court.
Though last week the administration attempted to minimize the number of travelers affected by the ban, Trump’s tweets on Sunday claimed the judge’s order allowed unscreened travelers to pour into the US.
The Washington Post has estimated about 90,000 people with visas to travel to the US would be affected by Trump’s temporary travel ban, though the New York Times reported on Saturday that there did not appear to be a large uptick in travelers from the nations affected by the ban.
Immigration experts contend that the US refugee application process — which requires US and UN background checks by multiple intelligence agencies and several in-person interviews over the course of up to two years — is one of the most difficult ways to enter the US.
As reported by Business Insider