In September, the Trump administration edited its travel ban for a third time after repeated judicial shutdowns. The new ban — on most travelers from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen — was scheduled to take effect on October 18, which caused the Supreme Court to cancel a scheduled hearing about the ban. However and once again, a lower federal judge has ruled against the travel ban, setting up yet another legal showdown over immigration policy:
The decision from Judge Derrick K. Watson in Hawaii is sure to be appealed, but for now, it means that the administration cannot restrict the entry of travelers from six of the eight countries that officials said were either unable or unwilling to provide information that the United States wanted to vet their citizens.
The order, however, keeps the ban in place for travelers from North Korea, which sends very few visitors to the U.S., and Venezuela, though only certain government officials from that country are subject to the ban.
In his decision, Watson wrote that the ban “suffers from precisely the same maladies as its predecessor: it lacks sufficient findings that the entry of more than 150 million nationals from six specified countries would be ‘detrimental to the interests of the United States.'” Watson added that the ban “plainly discriminates based on nationality” which violated federal law as well as “the founding principles of this Nation.”
The question of whether President Trump has the authority to put such a ban in place remains up in the air. While the Supreme Court still hasn’t heard arguments about the ban, they had ruled it could be enacted temporarily prior to provisions expiring in the past. The Trump administration is expected to appeal this latest decision.
(Via Washington Post)