Supreme Court upholds Trump travel ban
US president hails decision as ‘a moment of profound vindication’
Asharply divided Supreme Court yesterday upheld President Donald Trump’s ban on travel from several mostly Muslim countries, rejecting a challenge that it discriminated against Muslims or exceeded his authority. A dissenting justice said the outcome was a historic mistake.
The 5-4 decision is a big victory for Trump on an issue that is central to his presidency, and the court’s first substantive ruling on a Trump administration policy. The president quickly tweeted his reaction: “Wow!”
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion for the five conservative justices, including Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch. Roberts wrote that presidents have substantial power to regulate immigration. He also rejected the challengers’ claim of anti-Muslim bias.
But he was careful not to endorse either Trump’s provocative statements about immigration in general or Muslims in particular, including Trump’s campaign pledge to keep Muslims from entering the country. “We express no view on the soundness of the policy,” Roberts wrote.
Policy out of bounds
The travel ban has been fully in place since December, when the justices put the brakes on lower court rulings that had ruled the policy out of bounds and blocked part of it from being enforced.
The Trump policy applies to travellers from five countries with overwhelmingly Muslim populations — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. It also affects two non-Muslim countries, blocking travellers from North Korea and some Venezuelan government officials and their families.
A sixth majority Muslim country, Chad, was removed from the list in April after improving “its identity-management and information sharing practices,” Trump said.
Trump hailed the decision as “a moment of profound vindication” following “months of hysterical commentary from the media and Democratic politicians who refuse to do what it takes to secure our border and our country.”
US Border Patrol agents have stopped handing parents over to the Justice Department for prosecution when they are caught crossing the border illegally with their children, the head of the US Customs and Border Protection agency said on Monday.
The statement by Commissioner Kevin McAleenan marked a significant, if temporary, step back from the “zero tolerance” policy that the Trump administration has pursued for the last two months, which has led to more than 2,000 children being taken from their parents.
President Trump issued an order last Wednesday to stop separating families.
“I directed the temporary suspension of prosecutions for families in that category while we work through a process ... where we can maintain family unity while enforcing prosecution efforts,” McAleenan said.
He said he hoped to find a way to resume prosecutions more quickly, so that families would be separated for less time.
His statement came as White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the government was starting to “run out of space” to house people apprehended crossing the border. “We’re simply out of resources,” Sanders said.
Fate uncertain
The country’s three family detention centres can house 3,326 immigrants, according to an April report by the Government Accountability Office. As of last week, they housed 2,623, according to a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE officials did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.
The administration has refused so far to say when — or if — most children who were taken from their parents in recent weeks would be reunited with them.
McAleenan said 538 children who had been taken from their families for short periods but had remained in the custody of the Border Patrol have been reunited with parents.
But the fate of the considerably larger group of children who have been transferred to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services remains much more uncertain.