On Monday, President Donald Trump again faced a legal setback, as another federal appeals court declined to grant his travel ban to prevent people from certain countries coming to the US. The dispute now seems certain to be heading to the Supreme Court.
Narrow grounds were used to reject the bid by the Trump administration to undo the blocking of the travel ban issued by a federal judge from Hawaii by the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco. The three-judge panel, appointed by the Democratic Party, claim that existing immigration law was violated by the March 6 executive order, issued by the President. They declined, though, to make any comment on whether the order, which targeted primarily Muslim nations, was unconstitutionally discriminatory.
On 25 May, the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia upheld the blocking of the President’s 90-day travel ban on visitors from Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and Sudan issued by a judge in Maryland. The 4th Circuit claimed that the ban, which replaced an earlier executive order issued in late January, was discriminatory and biased against Muslims.
The case had already been fast-tracked for the Supreme Court even before yesterday’s ruling and the administration’s request could be acted on as early as this week. Trump called for Muslim immigrants and visitors to be completely banned from entering the US during his 2016 Presidential election campaign.