Supreme Court listens as sides argue travel ban
Conservative justices appear to back Trump’s issuance of order
WASHINGTON — The conservative majority on the Supreme Court seemed to agree Wednesday that President Donald Trump has the authority to ban travelers from certain majority-Muslim countries if he thinks it is necessary to protect the country.
Lower courts have struck down each of the three iterations of the president’s travel-ban proclamation, the first of which was issued just a week after he took office in January 2017. But the conservative-leaning Supreme Court might be Trump’s best hope, and it gave the administration a boost by allowing the ban to go into effect in December while considering the challenges to it.
Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the justices the president was well within his power to issue the proclamation and that it came after a thorough, worldwide review of the vetting procedures of countries.
“The vast majority of the world, including the vast majority of the Muslim world, was just fine,” Francisco said, while a “tiny” number of countries were not.
If it were meant to be a Muslim ban, he said, “it would be the most ineffective Muslim ban that one could possibly imagine, since not only does it exclude the vast majority of the Muslim world, it also omits three Muslim-majority countries that were covered by past orders.”
Chief Justice John Roberts was most active in advancing the notion the president is privy to national security information that courts are ill prepared to second-guess.
And Justice Anthony Kennedy, who always seems to occupy the pivotal position when conservative and liberal justices disagree, asked questions that mostly seemed supportive of the president’s authority.
The high-profile hearing, the last of the court’s term as it turns to writing opinions, called for the justices to balance their usual deference to the president on matters of national security with a never-before-seen barrage of campaign statements, tweets, retweets and comments from the president tying Muslims to terrorism.
The court is considering the iteration of Trump’s travel ban, issued last fall, that barred various travelers from eight countries, six of them with Muslim majorities. They are Syria, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Chad, Somalia, North Korea and Venezuela. But restrictions on North Korea and Venezuela are not part of the challenge. Chad was removed this month.