Travel ban
Trump from enforcing his order of March 6, which temporarily banned people from Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Iran and Yemen from entering the country.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the “government is reviewing the decision and determining how to proceed,” although the administration can now delay as early as this week some foreign nationals from those six countries from entering the United States.
The justices wrote the White House order “may not be enforced against foreign nationals who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
That would that include “individuals with a close familial relationship,” the court said, adding the administration could not block entry to the United States for “students from the designated countries who have been admitted” to an American university or a “worker who accepted an offer of employment from an American company.”
Despite those restraints, Trump called the unsigned order “a clear victory for our national security,” adding that the “ruling allows me to use an important tool for protecting” the United States.
But Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, questioned how effective the effort will be.
“We must continue to use every tool at our disposal to make sure our screening system is tough and effective, and I have and will continue to support meaningful efforts to ensure our vetting process works to keep terrorists out,” he said. “But slamming the door on children and families fleeing the very same terrorists we are fighting against will not make American safer.”
Although the justices did not sign their names to the order, its language suggests that Trump has a reasonable chance to eventually prevail in the court.
In addition, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch took the unusual step of writing separately to assert they would have permitted the administration to enforce the entire order.
Thomas declared that the “court’s remedy” of allowing exceptions will prove unworkable. The order, he wrote, “will burden executive officials with the task of deciding — on peril of contempt — whether individuals from the six affected nations who wish to enter the United States have a sufficient connection to a person or entity in this country.”
Thomas predicted the ruling “will invite a flood of litigation” until the Supreme Court rules “on the merits” of the executive order, a decision not likely to be handed down until late in the fall or early next winter.
The administration’s travel ban provoked a storm of criticism. The first order, issued on Jan. 27, prohibited entry for 90 days from people from seven countries — Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — even if they had visas or held green cards.
After a federal appeals court in California blocked enforcement of the order, the administration on March 6 issued a revised order that permitted those holding visas