Supreme Court to review Trump’s ban on travelers

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday said it will review whether President Donald Trump has the authority to ban travelers from certain countries in the name of national security, and will rule by June in what will be a major examination of the president’s powers.

The court will consider the third iteration of Trump’s travel ban, issued last fall, which bars various travelers from eight countries, six of them with Muslim majorities.

Lower courts have struck down each version of the Trump administration restrictions, dating back to those issued in his first week in office, but the Supreme Court has yet to rule on the extent of the president’s authority.

Solicitor General Noel Francisco said it was time for the high court to recognize the vast authority the president wields when the nation’s security is at stake.

“The courts below have overridden the president’s judgments on sensitive matters of national security and foreign relations, and severely restricted the ability of this and future presidents to protect the nation,” Francisco wrote in his petition to the court.

Challengers to the ban — in this case, the state of Hawaii and others — say Trump has exceeded his legal authority in banning travelers from certain nations.

“No prior president has attempted to implement a policy that so baldly exceeds the statutory limits on the president’s power to exclude, or so nakedly violates Congress’s bar on nationality-based discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas,” said Hawaii’s brief asking the court to let lower court decisions stand.

But there are indications that the Supreme Court will be more sympathetic to the administration’s claim that the president has extraordinary powers if acting to keep the nation safe.

Last month the justices said the restrictions in Trump’s latest version of the ban could go into effect as envisioned while legal challenges continued.

That decision, which included noted dissents only from liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and

Sonia Sotomayor, in effect discarded a compromise the justices fashioned regarding the second version of the plan. That compromise said the ban would not affect those who could prove significant connections to the United States.

The current version of the plan imposes various restrictions on travelers from Syria, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Chad, Somalia, North Korea and Venezuela. The first six of those countries have Muslim-majority populations.

The court will review a unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco. It said Trump had again exceeded his lawful authority and that he had not made a legally sufficient finding that entry of those blocked would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

VICTOR J. BLUE/THE NEW YORK TIMES 2017 People gather in New York City’s Foley Square to protest the Trump administration’s travel ban late last month. The Supreme Court said Friday it would review a federal appellate court’s ruling against the ban.