The Supreme Court on Monday gave the Trump administration a major win by allowing full enforcement of the controversial travel ban which prohibits travelers from six nations with Muslim majorities and histories of terrorist activities.
Supreme Court allows full enforcement of Trump travel ban
The justices, with two dissenting votes, said Monday that the policy can take full effect even as legal challenges against it make their way through the courts. The action suggests the high court could uphold the latest version of the ban that Trump announced in September.
The ban applies to travelers from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Lower courts had said people from those nations with a claim of a “bona fide” relationship with someone in the United States could not be kept out of the country. Grandparents, cousins and other relatives were among those courts said could not be excluded.
The vote wasn’t as close as many expected, leaving little room for those opposed to the travel ban to claim it was a partisan issue. Only Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, regarded as the two most liberal justices, dissented.
This means the current travel ban, which was released by the administration in September, will likely be allowed as well. Moreover, it sends a message to lower courts that attempting to ban such actions will be overturned. Judges who are consistently overturned are more prone to have their rulings in other matters questioned.
