Supreme Court will hear Trump travel ban challenge

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Chief Justice John Roberts (seated C) leads Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (front row, L-R), Justice Anthony Kennedy, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Stephen Breyer, Justice Elena Kagan (back row, L-R), Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch in taking a new family photo including Gorsuch, their most recent addition, at the Supreme Court building in Washington.

The March 6 executive order, revised from an earlier version that was blocked by courts, called for a 90-day ban on travelers from six countries — Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. It also pushed for a 120-day ban on all refugees entering the United States.

The court ruled Monday that the order can take effect except for people who “lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” It said the same for the refugee provision.

Three justices — including Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch — said they would have let the executive order go into effect in full.

Trump has publicly argued for his executive order and against prior court rulings, sometimes to his own detriment. A 9th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion this month upholding a ruling blocking the order cited one of Trump’s tweets in which he said that we “need a TRAVEL BAN for certain DANGEROUS countries.”

Earlier this month, Trump argued that “we need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!”

He later contended that the Justice Department “should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct” version that the Supreme Court will hear.

— Reuters contributed to this report