The long-running saga of US travel bans is back in headlines after a 5-4 Supreme Court decision Tuesday upholding the Trump Administration’s right to restrict access from five Middle Eastern nations.
The current version of the ban affects travelers from five mostly Muslim nations — Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — as well as Venezuela and North Korea. It had included Chad but that nation was removed from the list after the US said it improved its information sharing.
The court case, Trump versus Hawaii et al, had centered on the mostly Muslim nations and critics had argued it amounted to a “Muslim ban” that contravened US immigration laws and the nation's constitution.
A District Court had granted a nationwide preliminary injunction against the policy after a challenge by the State of Hawaii, three individuals and the Muslim Association of Hawaii.
The Supreme Court decision broke down along partisan lines between Republican-nominated and dissenting Democrat-appointed judges.
However, the court majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, rejected the religious claims and said the ban fell within the president’s authority.
It found the President had lawfully exercised the broad discretion granted to him under the Immigration and Nationality Act provision §1182(f) to “suspend the entry of aliens into the United States”.
The opinion also rejected the religious animus argument.
“It is expressly premised on legitimate purposes and says nothing about religion,’’ it said. “The entry restrictions on Muslim-majority nations are limited to countries that were previously designated by Congress or prior administrations as posing national security risks.
“Moreover, the Proclamation reflects the results of a worldwide review process undertaken by multiple Cabinet officials and their agencies.”
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Trump immediately seized on the decision to declare it a “tremendous victory”.
“The Supreme Court has upheld the clear authority of the President to defend the national security of the United States,’’ he said in a White House statement. “In this era of worldwide terrorism and extremist movements bent on harming innocent civilians, we must properly vet those coming into our country.”
Civil liberties groups attacked the Supreme Court and vowed to continue to their fight as protestors gathered in Washington, DC.
“The fight against the ban will continue, but the court’s decision is devastating,’’ American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Cody Wofsy said on the ACLU website. “History will not be kind to the court’s approval of an unfounded and blatantly anti-Muslim order.”
The director of the ACLU’s Immigrants Rights project, Omar Jadwat, said the ruling repeated the mistake of the World War II Korematsu decision upholding Japanese-American imprisonment.
He said it “swallows wholesale government lawyers’ flimsy national security excuse for the ban instead of taking seriously the president’s own explanation for his action”.
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