Constitutional Crisis ?

To Recap what everyone knows now (in case anyone reads this months from now)

On January 27th Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending the refugee admission program for 120 days and blocking US entry for citizens of 7 countries for 30 days.
The order was written without input from the Justice, Homeland Security, State and Defence departments. As written it banned entry for legal permanent residents (with green cards) who were travelling abroad when it was issued. It also banned entry for people who were on airplanes flying to the USA when it was signed.

On January 28th dozens (to hundreds ?) of people were detained in Airports. Tens of thousands of ordinary Americans went to the airports to protest the new policy (there is hope). Also hundreds of lawyers spontaneously went to airports to attempt to represent (pro bono) the people who were detained and at risk of being put on planes returning to the foreign point of departure.

Early January 29, some aspects of the execution of the executive order was temporarily stayed by a judge

Judge Ann Donnelly of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn granted a request from the American Civil Liberties Union to stop the deportations after determining that the risk of injury to those detained by being returned to their home countries necessitated the decision.

3:00 AM January 29th, the Associated Press reported — something. It is not clear to me if the recent event is a constitutional crisis or just an absurd lie alternative fact.

The Ap reported

Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the White House, said that nothing in the judge’s order “in anyway impedes or prevents the implementation of the president’s executive order which remains in full, complete and total effect.”

If Miller meant what he said, he has declared that the Trump administration will order the executive branch to ignore the stay (that is the only way the order could remain in “total effect”. If so, there would no longer be rule of law in the USA. There would only be Trump’s orders and the decision by people in uniforms whether to obey them.

I am fairly confident that the US is still a nation of laws. I think that Miller’s statement is a simple blatant lie not the declaration of a coup. I think he is sayign that the Judges order would have no effect even if it were obeyed. I am pretty sure Miller is insisting that Donnelly didn’t order what Donnelly ordered.

In contrast the more official response by the DHS noted that the stay applies only to people in the USA or in the air at the time it was granted.

Also the DHS didn’t mention legal permanent residents. It is very clear that the DHS can’t block their entry to the USA. In fact, it is known that the DHS argued this immediately and was over-ruled by White House staff. The application of the order to legal permanent residents is very clearly blatantly illegal. Arguably, the executive order is completely illegal, but to ignore green cards is very clearly illegal.