Trump administration defends travel ban
It argues national security, not religion, is at core of order
The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to end the sixmonth legal battle over its immigrant and refugee travel ban by ruling that it is all about national security, not religion.
In a lengthy brief that served as the opening salvo in a Supreme Court case scheduled for oral argument two months from today, the Justice Department argued that Trump’s vow to ban Muslims during last year’s presidential campaign is legally, if not rhetorically, irrelevant.
The travel ban’s challengers, including Hawaii and a coalition of immigrant rights groups, will respond next month as the court showdown approaches.
A decision from the justices isn’t expected until next year.
In the meantime, however, the two sides continue to joust in a federal appeals court in California over the Supreme Court’s orders in June and July that allowed the ban to take effect temporarily, but with exceptions for close relatives of U.S. citizens and certain refugees.
That court has scheduled a hearing for Aug. 28.
The saga began Jan. 27, when Trump issued an executive order entitled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.”
It suspended travel from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days, blocked all refugees for 120 days, and suspended travel from Syria indefinitely.
The action led to chaos at airports in the U.S. and overseas, followed within hours by temporary restraining orders and, over the next few weeks, a series of federal court rulings striking down the ban.
As a result, Trump issued a revised version March 6, exempting visa- and green-card-holders and dropping Iraq from the list.
The revisions didn’t change Trump’s luck in the predominately liberal federal appeals courts based in Richmond and San Francisco, the Supreme Court in June upheld parts of the ban and agreed to consider its overall constitutionality in the fall.
Meanwhile, the court said travelers from the six targeted countries can bypass the travel ban and enter the U.S. if they can prove they have a “bona fide” relationship with a U.S. person or entity.
The Trump administration defined that close relationship as immediate relatives, including spouses and spouses-to-be, children and parents.
Federal District Court Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii later ordered the list expanded to include grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, cousins and in-laws.
The administration also ruled that only refugees personally matched with a resettlement agency in the U.S. could enter.
Yet Watson disagreed and ordered officials to allow more refugees in. Last month, the justices said the additional relatives deserve entry, but not additional refugees, leaving the appeals court in California to sort out the details.