Supreme Court Upholds Trump Administration Travel Ban

The Supreme Court today upheld President Donald Trump’s “travel ban,” 5-4, ending a nearly 18-month battle between the administration and opponents over who can enter the U.S.

Today’s decision allows the government to proceed with stricter rules against travelers from eight nations: Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Somalia, Yemen and Venezuela.

In his majority opinion accompanying the decision, Chief Justice John Roberts said the court was ruling strictly on the ability of an American president to enact rules to address national security concerns, and that the court held “no view on the soundness of the policy.”

In the decision, Roberts cited presidential authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act allowing him to bar entry of a “class of aliens,” and that the phrasing in the administration’s September 2017 ban “comfortably encompasses a group of people linked by nationality.”

Overriding legal challenges that the rules were focusing on Muslims because of their religion, Roberts wrote that there was “persuasive evidence that the entry suspension has a legitimate grounding in national security concerns, quite apart from any religious hostility.”

Trump signed the initial travel ban executive order at the end of his first week in office, barring travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries and halting a refugee program mostly assisting Syrians. The executive order caused chaos at airports as travelers were swept up in rules literally in the middle of their trips to the U.S.

The order was suspended by legal challenges in several U.S. district courts, claiming that it targeted Muslims and Muslim-majority countries. These legal challenges forced the Trump administration to revise the order, and it issued a new one in March 2017.

This September, the Trump administration produced a third version of the order, adding North Korea and Venezuela to the list of impacted countries. The order was allowed to be enacted while legal challenges were escalated to the Supreme Court.

The court’s decision today effectively permits the administration to continue implementing September’s order.

ASTA Response
In a statement, ASTA Executive Vice President of Advocacy Eben Peck said that the organization “is currently reviewing the Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding President Trump’s Executive Order – which has been in effect since December 2017 pending a final court decision – with an eye toward assisting travel agents comply with it.”

“As it is imperative that the traveling public maintain confidence in an industry so vital to our nation’s economy, we ask that the Administration set clear implementation guidelines in short order such that travel disruptions are kept to an absolute minimum,” he added. “At the same time, we align with the sentiment expressed by the U.S. Travel Association and other industry leaders that an overt message welcoming legitimate international travelers to the United States should accompany any security steps aimed at terrorists and those who overstay their visas.”