SC hints it may junk challenge to US travel ban

New York, Sept. 26: The Supreme Court signalled on Monday it may dismiss a challenge to President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban after the White House announced tailored restrictions on eight countries that legal experts said stand a better chance at holding up in court.

The high court cancelled oral arguments scheduled for October 10 to decide whether or not a March 6 executive order that temporarily blocked travel from six Muslimmajority countries was discriminatory.

That ban expired on Sunday. The President replaced it with a proclamation that indefinitely restricts travel from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea. Certain government officials from Venezuela will also be barred. The new ban, Mr Trump’s third, could affect tens of thousands of potential immigrants and visitors.

Mr Trump has been trying for most of the year to create a ban that passes court muster. The Sunday proclamation, which he said is needed to screen out terrorist or public safety threats, could be less vulnerable to legal attack, scholars and other experts said, because it is the result of a monthslong analysis of foreign vetting procedures by US officials. It also might be less easily tied to Mr Trump’s campaign-trail statements some courts viewed as biased against Muslims.

“The greater the sense that the policy reflects a considered, expert judgment, the less the temptation (by courts) to secondguess the executive,” said Saikrishna Prakash, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, in an email. “It looks less like a matter of prejudice or a desire to fulfill a campaign promise.” In its brief order, the high court asked the Trump administration and the ban’s challengers, including states and refugee advocacy organisations, to file briefs on whether the case should be dismissed.

Mr Trump’s March 6 ban sparked international outrage and was quickly blocked by federal courts as unconstitutional discrimination or a violation of immigration law. In June, the Supreme Court allowed a limited version of the ban to go ahead while the justices prepared to hear arguments over its legality on October 10, a date they have now scrubbed.

In 2016, more than 72,000 nonimmigrant and immigrant visas were issued to the countries covered by the new ban, excluding Venezuela.