US Court Allows Part Of Trump’s Travel Ban Go Into Effect

By Oladipupo Mojeed

Parts of the travel ban initiated by US President, Donald Trump, has been partially lifted by the US Supreme Court after it had earlier been stopped through an injunction.

America’s highest court also granted an emergency request from the White House allowing part of the refugee ban to go into effect.

The justices also said they would consider in October whether Trump’s policy should be upheld or struck down.

The ban

The order seeks to place a 90-day ban on people from six mainly Muslim nations and a 120-day ban on refugees.

The Supreme Court said in Monday’s ruling that President Trump’s travel ban can go into effect for foreigners who lack a “bona fide relationship” with someone in the US.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch wrote in the ruling that they would have allowed the travel ban to go into full effect, pending a review.

Trump had suffered a series of stinging judicial setbacks over the measure, with two federal appeals courts maintaining injunctions on the ban.

Those courts had argued the president had overstepped his authority, and that his executive order discriminated against travelers based on their nationality.

“Immigration, even for the president, is not a one-person show,” the three justices of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said in a ruling earlier this month.

“National security is not a ‘talismanic incantation’ that, once invoked, can support any and all exercise of executive power,” they added.

Narrowed scope

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of those injunctions, saying the government could enforce its measure against “foreign nationals unconnected to the United States” without causing injury to the parties who filed suit.

Conversely, those with a “close familial relationship” in the US are not affected.

The revised measure, announced in March, seeks to bar from US entry travelers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, as well as suspend the entry of refugees for 120 days.

The original measure, issued by executive order in January, also included Iraq on the list of targeted countries and had imposed an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees.