US: supreme court allows enforcement of Trump's travel ban

The ban ordered by the US president includes those travelling from six Muslim-majority countries (and two others) and could be imposed immediately 

(Photo: VOX)
(Photo: VOX)

The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a ban ordered by US president Donald Trump, on those travelling from six Muslim-majority countries and two others could be imposed immediately whilst court cases challenging the ban are resolved.

It was expected that the disposition of the ban would take months. However, a 7-2 ruling by the high court disappointed anti-discrimination advocates, who protested the decision.

The ban implies that the US would refuse entry visas to prospective travelers from the countries:

  • Chad
  • Iran
  • Yemen
  • Somalia
  • Libya
  • North Korea
  • Venezuela

Under an executive action, which was announced in July, an exception would be made for those with “bona fide” links with the US, like documented business purposes or close family relationships.

The ruling does not indicate that the supreme court accepts the ban as constitutional, but that it found that Trump’s argument that an emergency injunction against the ban was unnecessary.

It is expected that the high court weigh the ban on its merits and to deduce whether it violates constitutional protections against discrimination, within the next few months.

The US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, said the ruling was a “substantial victory for the safety and security of the American people,” despite the advice of terrorism scholars, who said that security justifications for the ban are nothing if not misleading.

The supreme court ruling was decried in a statement by the progressive centre for Constitutional Rights:

“We will not allow this to become the new normal. Whatever the courts say, the Muslim Ban is inhumane and discriminatory. We must continue to demonstrate that we reject and will resist the politics of fear, anti-Muslim racism and white supremacy.”

The Trump Administration denied that the ban is discriminatory. Trump himself, however, may have made that argument invalid, according to legal analysts, by tweeting the anti-Muslim videos from a British far-right group late last month.

The president’s first ban, issued in January, was quickly blocked by a series of lower court rulings.

The second attempt, a more streamlined version of the first, was also blocked by the lower courts but eventually allowed to come into effect in a limited form over summer.

Donald Trump (Photo: CNN)
Donald Trump (Photo: CNN)

Lawyers challenging the administration’s successive travel bans have argued that each iteration of the restrictions suffers from the same discriminatory intent, evolving from Trump’s pledge as a presidential candidate to enforce a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States.

The San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals and the fourth US circuit court of appeals in Richmond, Virginia, will be holding arguments on the legality of the ban this week.

Both courts are dealing with the issue on an accelerated basis, and the supreme court noted it expected those courts to reach decisions “with appropriate dispatch”.

Quick resolution by appellate courts would allow the supreme court to hear and decide the issue this term, by the end of June.

Following the supreme court ruling on Monday afternoon, lawyers involved in the current challenges to Trump’s ban vowed to continue fighting.

Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s immigrants’ rights project, said:

“We continue to stand for freedom, equality, and for those who are unfairly being separated from their loved ones. We will be arguing Friday in the Fourth Circuit that the ban should ultimately be struck down.”