US travel ban partly reinstated

But supreme court says it will examine case fully in October

WASHINGTON // The US supreme court has partly reinstated president Donald Trump’s travel ban on citizens from six mainly Muslim nations.

But it said it would examine the case in full in October.

The court ruled yesterday that the ban could be enforced for travellers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen “who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States”.

However, the ban – which was put on hold by lower courts – cannot be implemented for now against people who have personal links to the US, the judges said, such as foreign nationals wishing to visit family or students accepted to university.

But the decision marks a win for Mr Trump, who has insisted the ban is necessary for national security, despite criticism that it singles out Muslims, in breach of the US constitution.

“Today’s unanimous supreme court decision is a clear victory for our national security,” he said. “It allows the travel suspension for the six terror-prone countries and refugee suspension to become largely effective.

“As president, I cannot allow people into our country who want to do us harm.”

Mr Trump said last week that the ban would take effect 72 hours after being cleared.

His original measure, issued by executive order in January, was almost immediately blocked by the courts.

It sought to bar entry to travellers from seven countries for 90 days, suspend the entry of refugees from Syria indefinitely, and for 120 days for refugees from other countries. He issued a revised order in March that dropped Iraq from the list of targeted countries and the indefinite ban on Syrian refugees.

The Trump government says the ban is needed to prevent terror attacks in the country, and that it needs the time allowed by the ban to evaluate existing screening protocols and set new ones.

But courts ruled that because it applied selectively to mainly Muslim countries, the ban breached the US constitution’s ban on religious discrimination.

While the ban did not single out Muslims, judges quoted Mr Trump’s repeated statements during last year’s presidential race that he intended to ban Muslims from entering the US. The supreme court ruling narrowed the scope of injunctions that the lower courts placed on the ban, saying the government could enforce its measure against “foreign nationals unconnected to the United States” without causing injury to the parties who filed suit.

Mr Trump’s failure to impose his travel bans had left in limbo a key campaign promise to crack down on immigration from Muslim countries.

The countries targeted were on a list from the Obama administration of places where the governments had very poor data on their own citizens, making it difficult to vet the identities of visa applicants.

The justice department filed an emergency application to the supreme court on June 1, urging it to undo two lower court rulings. The White House argued that the US president had the power to set immigration policy, especially on national security grounds.

The review of screening procedures for visa applicants from the six countries, for which the administration had sought the 90-day travel ban, should be complete before the supreme court begins its new term on October 2. Even without the ban in place, arrivals from these countries has dropped sharply, partly due to the “extreme vetting” approach of US authorities, toughening their scrutiny of visa applicants.

Arrivals from the six nations were down by nearly half in March and April – 6,372 for the two months, compared with 12,100 for the same period last year, according to recent official data.