U.S. Supreme Court upholds Donald Trump’s travel ban

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld President Donald Trump's third attempt to ban the entry of individuals from certain countries, affirming his executive authority to restrict immigration to the United States.

In a June 26 5-4 decision, the court held that "the President has lawfully exercised the broad discretion granted to him under §1182(f) to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States."

The court said that federal law entrusts to the president with decisions related to the entry of individuals: whether and when to suspend entry, whose entry to suspend, for how long and on what conditions.

The president need only determine "that the entry of the covered aliens 'would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.' The president has undoubtedly fulfilled that requirement here," the court said.

Critics of Trump's travel ban, which lists several Muslim-majority nations, labeled it as a Muslim ban. The Trump administration denied that assessment and said the proclamation was issued on national security grounds.

During the campaign, Trump called for a "total and complete shutdown" of Muslim entry into the United States, "until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on." His remark came after a Muslim couple killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif. The husband was born in the United States to Pakistani immigrants, and the wife was an immigrant born in Pakistan.

Trump's travel restrictions currently apply to nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, North Korea and Venezuela. (Chad was removed from the list in April.) The Trump administration has said nations can be added or removed from the travel ban based on their compliance with baseline requirements that United States requests for the vetting of potential entrants.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the court's decision, "leaves undisturbed a policy first advertised openly and unequivocally as a 'total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States' because the policy now masquerades behind a façade of national-security concerns."

Trump celebrated the decision tweeting: "SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS TRUMP TRAVEL BAN. Wow!"

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the ruling "confirms the legality" of Trump's executive actions and that the department will continue to execute immigration laws.

While the court found that Trump's proclamation squares within his presidential authority under immigration law, "it is limited to the facts of the case and should not have broad impacts on immigration law," said immigration law professor and dean of the UC Davis School of Law Kevin Johnson via email.

The court's decision does not extend Trump's executive powers over immigration law, Johnson said. "It merely says that the executive order is within the powers delegated by Congress," Johnson said.

David J. Bier, an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, said the decision "undermines a core principle of the U.S. immigration system since 1965: that the law will not discriminate against immigrants based on nationality or place of birth."

"The ban entirely lacks a reasonable basis in the facts. Nationals of the targeted countries have not carried out any deadly terrorist attacks in the United States, and they are not more likely to commit other crimes in the United States," Bier said via email. "Nor are their governments less able or willing than others to share information or adopt certain identity management protocols."

Trump's third version of the travel ban specifically was tailored based on national-security considerations, to which the court typically defers, said Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review.

"One can quibble with the policy judgments inherent in this executive action, but as a matter of law, the president—any president—gets a wide berth here," Shapiro said via email.

The Supreme Court's decision allows Trump to continue restricting the entry of certain nationals into the United States. Given the highest court's decision, we rate Trump's promise to suspend immigration from terror-prone places as Promise Kept.