Thursday night [June 1, 2017], Donald Trump’s administration submitted a petition to the US Supreme Court in an effort to reverse rulings in Hawaii and Maryland that blocked the original ban on travel from six majority-Muslim nations: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
According to the administration, the president has the “broad authority to prevent aliens abroad from entering this country when he deems it in the nation’s interest.”
It was in March that federal judges in Hawaii launched a nationwide temporary restraining order and injunction against the ban, and last month in Maryland, the decision was bolstered by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, whose chief judge states that the ban “drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.”
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also received petitions from the Trump administration to overrule the injunction enacted by Hawaii’s judges on May 15 with no ruling having been made yet.
Now, President Trump and the Justice Department are going to the Supreme Court to have the decision made in the 4th Circuit overturned.
“We have asked the Supreme Court to hear this important case and are confident that President Trump’s executive order is well within his lawful authority to keep the nation safe and protect our communities from terrorism,” writes Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores. “The president is not required to admit people from countries that sponsor or shelter terrorism, until he determines that they can be properly vetted and do not pose a security risk to the United States.”
