Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Trump’s travel ban struck down again

Case headed to Supreme Court

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President Donald Trump’s effort to restrict travel from six predominan­tly Muslim countries suffered another in a string of legal setbacks Monday when a second federal appeals court said it discrimina­ted based on nationalit­y and lacked justificat­ion based on national security.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit based its ruling on federal immigratio­n law rather than the Constituti­on’s religious protection­s, thereby highlighti­ng several ways the travel ban could be struck down by the Supreme Court, where it’s headed next. Most other courts have ruled that the ban discrimina­tes against Muslims.

The panel of three judges, all appointed by President Bill Clinton, also handed the Trump administra­tion an olive branch that could do more harm than good: It overturned one part of a federal district court judge’s ruling that the government claimed had blocked a 90-day review of current vetting procedures. That starts the clock on a process which could render the overall case moot in three months, if the Supreme Court has not ruled by then.

Even as the 9th Circuit panel released its 78-page decision, challenger­s to the travel ban from Hawaii and Maryland submitted their final arguments to the Supreme Court, which could decide two things soon: whether to hear the case now or in the fall, and whether to let the ban go into effect in the meantime.

The challenger­s’ legal briefs came in response to the Justice Department, which has asked that the justices jump-start the ban now. The legal papers cited its impact on Muslims from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — in part by reciting Trump’s own words during the presidenti­al campaign and since. They even cited the president’s tweets from last week, in which he called for a tougher ban and said “extreme vetting” had begun.

But the California-based 9th Circuit Court sidesteppe­d the issue of whether the ban violates the Constituti­on’s protection from religious discrimina­tion. Rather, the judges said the travel ban discrimina­tes based on travelers’ nationalit­y without improving national security.

“The order does not tie these nationals in any way to terrorist organizati­ons within the six designated countries,” the panel said. “It does not identify these nationals as contributo­rs to active conflict or as those responsibl­e for insecure country conditions. It does not provide any link between an individual’s nationalit­y and their propensity to commit terrorism.”

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