Trump’s travel ban gets a boost
Supreme Court to hear case in fall, but scaled-back version can go into effect this week
The Supreme Court approved a scaled-back version of President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from six mostly Muslim countries Monday, agreeing to hear the merits of the case in the fall but allowing Trump for now to claim a victory in the contentious legal showdown.
The court’s unsigned order delivered a compromise neither side had asked for: It said the ban may not be enforced against those with a “bona fide” connection to this country, such as family members here or an awaiting job or place in an American university.
But it indicated that lower courts had gone too far in completely freezing Trump’s order banning for 90 days the issuance of new visas to citizens of six countries — Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — and putting the refugee program on hold for 120 days.
“The government’s inter-
est in enforcing (the executive order) and the executive’s authority to do so, are undoubtedly at their peak when there is no tie between the foreign national and the United States,” the court wrote.
In a statement, Trump called the ruling “a clear victory for our national security.”
“As president, I cannot allow people into our country who want to do us harm,” Trump said. “I want people who can love the United States and all of its citizens, and who will be hard-working and productive.”
He added that he was “particularly gratified that the Supreme Court’s decision was 9-0.”
The president said last week that the order would go into effect 72 hours after receiving an approval from the courts.
Presidential powers
In the opinion, the court said it will consider the merits of the case — which raises fundamental questions about religious discrimination and also the president’s broad powers to protect the nation — when it reconvenes in October.
In the meantime, the court nudged the Trump administration to get on with what it said would be a temporary pause to review vetting procedures.
“We fully expect that the relief we grant today will permit the executive to conclude its internal work and provide adequate notice to foreign governments” within 90 days, the court said.
That means by the time the court takes the case up in the fall, circumstances could be quite different. Depending on the results of the review, Trump could push to extend the measure, or even make it permanent.
And the court told lawyers to address whether the court’s consideration of the case might be moot by fall.
Leon Fresco, deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Immigration Litigation in President Barack Obama’s Justice Department, said the effect would seem to be limited to two types of visa seekers who don’t have family or other U.S. ties: those seeking to come to the U.S. as visitors, or those seeking to enter via a lottery process meant for people from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the U.S.
Anyone with a school acceptance letter, job offer or family member already here would likely be able to obtain a visa and travel as normal.
Interpretations of the court’s decision diverged widely among immigration attorneys and advocates.
Some, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), suggested that the decision would allow for “only the narrowest” implementation of the travel ban, impacting very few wouldbe travelers from the six countries.
But other groups, such as Amnesty International USA, warned of grave consequences, such as a renewal of “chaos” at airports and an enforcement of the ban that would “tear families apart.”
The ruling explicitly says that students from countries affected by the travel ban who have been admitted to the University of Hawaii, one of the states named in one of the cases being reviewed by the court, can demonstrate they have such a relationship. The court also specified that a lecturer invited to speak to an American audience would be able to show he or she had such a relationship.
School concerns
But some schools worried when the travel ban was initially drafted that it might deter international students, who typically pay full tuition and fees, from applying to study in the U.S., which could hurt schools financially. Some professors also expressed concern more students would head for more accessible countries like Canada, instead.
For now, it’s unclear what the future of the travel ban looks like or how students and schools will be affected long term.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have let the ban take effect as the Trump administration wrote it, and Thomas wrote that the court had made an “implicit conclusion that the government has made a strong showing that it likely to succeed on the merits.”
The revamped order of who is covered by the ban will “burden executive officials with the task of deciding — on peril of contempt — whether individuals from the six affected nations who wish to enter the United States have a sufficient connection to a person or entity in this country,” Thomas wrote.
Such a compromise, he wrote, will lead to a “flood of litigation” over what constitutes a “bona fide relationship.”
The proposed travel ban has been a major point of contention between Trump and civil rights groups, which say it was motivated by unconstitutional discrimination against Muslims.
When Trump issued his first travel ban, the State Department unilaterally revoked tens of thousands of visas, causing some travelers to be detained and sent away from U.S. airports.
The Supreme Court’s order would seem unlikely to re-create that chaos. Trump already had revoked and revised his first order so that it affected only the issuance of new visas, and the court left intact an even more limited version. Advocates nonetheless said they would deploy people to watch for potential abuses.
“The court’s decision threatens damage to vulnerable people waiting to come to the U.S., people with urgent medical conditions blocked, innocent people left adrift, all of whom have been extensively vetted,” said former British foreign secretary David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee.
“The court’s decision threatens damage to vulnerable people waiting to come to the U.S., people with urgent medical conditions blocked, innocent people left adrift, all of whom have been extensively vetted.” — Former British foreign secretary David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee