Travel ban: Supreme Court upholds Trump’s executive order on immigration and refugees

The Trump administration’s new restrictions on immigrants from Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania went into effect on Friday in an expansion of its controversial travel ban policy.

The new restrictions, detailed in a proclamation President Trump signed last month, aren’t as severe as those for other countries covered by the preexisting travel ban: They will still allow people from the newly listed countries to travel to the US temporarily.

No country has more to lose from President Donald Trump’s decision to expand the travel ban than Nigeria.

Starting February 22, Nigerians will no longer be able to obtain visas allowing them to immigrate to the US permanently. They can still travel to the US on temporary visas, such as those for foreign workers, tourists, and students. But for the large Nigerian diaspora in the US, the policy could erode their deep family and cultural ties to their home country, Africa’s most populous nation and one of its economic powerhouses.

Nine months after the Trump administration’s travel ban fully and permanently went into effect, the public is finally beginning to get some insight into how it’s being implemented — and whether the administration is actually as willing as it has claimed to give waivers to worthy visa applicants.

Documents from January 2018, newly obtained by the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) via a Freedom of Information Act request and shared with Vox, show the official guidance on the ban provided by the State Department to consular officers (who are responsible for conducting visa interviews and approving or denying visa applications).

Anthony Kennedy’s decision to retire at a moment when Donald Trump holds the presidency and Mitch McConnell controls the Senate hands conservatives true control of the Supreme Court for the foreseeable future.

As Dylan Matthews writes in an essential piece, “an America after Anthony Kennedy looks significantly different from America before. The movement against mass incarceration could run into unprecedented resistance from the Court, and the anti-abortion movement could notch its greatest victories in a half-century. This Supreme Court vacancy will give Donald Trump the power to shift jurisprudence on a range of critical issues. It could wind up being the most important part of his legacy.”

By upholding President Donald Trump’s travel ban (in its third iteration) in Trump v. Hawaii on Tuesday, the Supreme Court did Trump an enormous favor: It pretended he didn’t exist.

Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion (signed onto by the Court’s three other conservatives and “swing vote” Anthony Kennedy) is a clear declaration that the executive branch had the legal power to indefinitely restrict certain visa holders and immigrants from several countries, as the current travel ban (signed in September) has done since it was allowed to go into effect in December. The opinion scrupulously avoids any defense of Donald Trump, as an individual, in deciding to order such a policy.

Three times in American history, the Supreme Court has been asked to speak to a law, neutral on its face, yet rooted in a popular hatred or intolerance of minorities. Three times, it has chosen to ignore the real reasons for the law.

Three times, it has instead given a free pass to laws and policies predicated on discriminatory judgments that our Constitution supposedly bars.

The Supreme Court just decided to uphold President Donald Trump’s travel ban, which prevents some citizens from five Muslim-majority countries — Syria, Iran, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia — from entering the US.

But it’s worth noting something else: North Korea is actually on the list as well.

The Supreme Court’s decision allowing the third iteration of President Trump’s travel ban to become permanent immigration policy could have far-reaching effects on the health care system because of a little-appreciated fact: That system relies heavily on foreigners, including foreigners from the list of seven banned countries.

In a 5-4 decision Tuesday, the court upheld the current version of the travel ban — which means the administration can refuse some immigrants and visa holders from Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen entry to the US. This means would-be doctors, nurses, and home care aides (or their family members) from these countries will have a hard time entering the US, even when they qualify for the administration’s waiver program.

President Donald Trump finally has his travel ban.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the most recent version of the travel ban in Trump v. Hawaii. This isn’t the same executive order that generated a huge backlash in the early days of Trump’s presidency. That order banned all people from seven majority-Muslim countries for 90 days and nearly all refugees for 120 days — and was struck down by the courts.

The Supreme Court, by a 5 to 4 vote, just upheld President Trump’s travel ban on immigrants from several predominantly Muslim countries, including Iran, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.

The decision puts an end to the legal disputes over the constitutionality of Trump’s travel ban, but the ethics of the policy remain highly debatable. Do we have moral obligations to refugees fleeing horrendous conditions in their home countries? Is the ban consistent with core American values like fairness and justice? And what rights do states have to accept or reject refugees based on the expected burdens it might impose on their societies?

Just minutes after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority upheld President Trump’s travel ban, Mitch McConnell’s campaign team tweeted a photo of him with Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

The message was obvious: Gorsuch’s confirmation made the difference in this case — and the Senate majority leader wanted to brag about his role in making that happen.

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday, June 26, 5-4, that the Trump administration’s travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries is constitutional, largely because the administration picked the listed countries using criteria that were, on their face, race- and religion-neutral. Those criteria just happened to result in a policy banning entry from a number of Muslim countries (plus North Korea and Venezuela) and to come from a president who had repeatedly promised to bar Muslims from entering the United States.

The Court’s four liberals dissented. Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissent, which Justice Elena Kagan joined, is cautiously written, arguing that the case should be sent back to district court based on evidence that the policy is not being applied in a fair way.

President Donald Trump’s travel ban, in its third iteration, has been upheld by the Supreme Court in an opinion (written by Chief Justice John Roberts) that all but declares: This is normal.

Roberts’s opinion is a defense of the established process by which the most recent version of the ban was designed and implemented, of the rationales the administration offered to the Court for it that didn’t have anything to do with the “Muslim ban” Trump proposed as a candidate.

Donald Trump’s travel ban now appears to be a permanent part of US immigration policy.

On Tuesday, in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court ruled for the government in Trump v. Hawaii, the lawsuit over the current version of the travel ban — the third that the Trump administration has issued since it made its first effort in January 2017.

The Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump’s travel ban Tuesday by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that Trump’s decision to ban or restrict travel and immigration from seven countries, most of them majority-Muslim, was within his constitutional authority.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, with the court’s four liberals — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — dissenting.

The United States, Canada, and Mexico might have won the rights to host the 2026 World Cup in part because President Donald Trump promised that some of his most restrictive immigration policies would be relaxed for players and fans attending the games.

The three North American countries, which made a joint bid, were considered strong contenders to host the World Cup. But according to the New York Times, other nations’ representatives were worried about the Trump administration’s travel ban, as well as Trump’s comments about immigrants from “shithole countries.”

Wednesday morning’s Supreme Court oral arguments in Trump v. Hawaii — the case over President Donald Trump’s third version of the “travel ban” on immigrants and temporary visitors from several countries, most of which are majority Muslim — didn’t make the Court’s job in deciding the legality and constitutionality of the ban any easier.

Solicitor General Noel Francisco, arguing (for the government) that the ban should be allowed to continue, gave a strong performance that stuck to his side’s strongest arguments. So did Neal Katyal, arguing (for the state of Hawaii and other organizations suing the administration) that the Supreme Court should uphold a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that would have stopped the ban from being enforced. (The Supreme Court ruled in December that the ban should remain in effect until it weighed in more fully this spring.)

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will take up the travel ban again.

But in the year since the Court first examined the Trump administration’s efforts to bar people from certain countries, most of them majority-Muslim, from entering the US, the ban and the landscape both look very different.

The latest iteration of President Trump’s travel ban is finally about to go into effect for six majority-Muslim countries — but, again, it’s the courts rather than the White House setting the terms.

On Monday, judges from the Fourth and Ninth Circuits of the US Court of Appeals issued rulings that, in effect, allow the US to ban some residents of Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen indefinitely, while the lawsuit against the ban’s constitutionality makes its way through the courts. (Travel bans on Venezuela and North Korea were already in effect.) The circuit courts are partially superseding rulings from lower-court federal judges, who had put the ban on hold entirely for majority-Muslim countries.

President Donald Trump’s executive order stopping the entry of people from eight countries into the US, on the basis that their governments don’t share enough information to vet visa applicants, has been put on hold by a federal judge hours before it was supposed to go into effect — again.

But if you’re feeling déjà vu, resist it. This time might be different.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order over the weekend that restricts travel to the US from more countries than any of the travel bans that have come before it, effectively banning almost all travel from eight countries — six of which have majority Muslim populations — indefinitely.

Come October 18, nationals of Chad, Iran, Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, Somalia, and North Korea will be more or less barred entry to the United States. Each nation under this ban is subject to its own travel restrictions, but the order overwhelmingly bars tourists, families of American residents, and even those seeking medical visas from entering the United States. Those who already have permanent residency or already hold visas are exempted from the ban — but cannot renew their visas after they expire. And now the Supreme Court has canceled oral arguments against the travel ban, until both sides file new briefs on the impact this permanent policy would have.

The Supreme Court just clarified to the Trump administration that — for now — it can ban certain refugees from entering the United States, but it can’t ban the grandparents of US residents from visiting.

The Court refused to dispute last week’s ruling by a lower court that decided Trump had misinterpreted the higher court’s ruling from June, which allowed a limited version of Trump’s travel ban to go into effect until the justices hear the case in the fall. It did, however, clarify that grandparents cannot be legally banned under the Supreme Court’s ruling. The administration would have to argue that in the lower courts.

Now that a version of President Donald Trump’s travel ban is finally in effect, its critics are having a tougher time getting the courts to tweak it.

On Thursday night, Federal District of Hawaii Judge Derrick K. Watson — one of the judges who stopped the travel ban from going into effect back in March — refused to answer a question about whether some relatives of US residents, and most refugees, ought to be banned under the ruling the Supreme Court issued last week.

“America is not doing so hot right now,” declares law and technology journalist Sarah Jeong. But after the election of Donald Trump, she decided to become a US citizen anyway.

Jeong, who was born in South Korea, has spent the Trump administration doing two things. She’s been completing the naturalization process (she was formally sworn in as a citizen on June 28), in part to move past the fears she’s always felt as an immigrant going through “the system” — particularly when traveling outside the US. And she’s been covering the ongoing litigation over the Trump administration’s travel ban — which is, in part, a legal fight over how immigrants were treated when they returned to the US after traveling abroad.

The travel ban is back, but you wouldn’t know it at the airports.

In January, the first time the Trump administration attempted to ban people from several majority-Muslim countries from entering the US for 90 days, and refugees for 120 days, it produced chaos: massive protests, widespread detentions of people arriving at American airports, a flurry of legal challenges that ultimately put the ban on hold after a week.