Justices allow full enforcement of travel ban for now
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court gave President Trump a significant victory Monday, ruling he may put his full travel ban into effect while legal appeals are being weighed in lower courts.
The decision, with only two dissents, strongly suggests the justices believe the current version of Trump’s broad travel ban does not exceed his powers under the immigration laws and does not reflect unconstitutional religious discrimination against Muslims.
The justices issued an order saying they had stayed or blocked lower court decisions that prevented full enforcement of the ban. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
The travel ban — the third version issued by the Trump administration after previous versions encountered legal barriers — blocks visitors and immigrants from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and North Korea.
The order had gone into partial effect based on a middle-course position the Supreme Court set out in late June. Then, considering on an earlier version of the travel order, the justices ruled the administration could refuse entry for visitors and immigrants from several Muslim nations, but not to families, travelers and others who had a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship with person or entity in the United States.”
In recent weeks, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, and a federal judge in Maryland adopted that standard and applied it to Trump’s latest order. They agreed the ban could go into effect in part, but not against those who had close personal or professional ties to a person or an entity here. The 9th Circuit and the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, Va., are still weighing claims that Trump’s order discriminated based on nationality in violation of a 1965 law. The appeals courts are also considering claims that the ban reflected unconstitutional bias against Muslims.
Trump’s lawyers were not satisfied with that partial win in the appeals courts. They filed an emergency appeal Nov. 20 contending that allowing the ban to go into only partial affect “will cause ongoing irreparable harm to the government and the public.” They predicted the court would eventually uphold the order so the justices should permit it to go into full effect without further delay.