Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday night he disagreed with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling that keeps the block on President Trump’s travel ban in place.
Sessions said the Justice Department disagrees with the ruling, calling Trump’s executive order “well within his lawful authority.”
“Recent attacks confirm that the threat to our nation is immediate and real. We must not place our nation at risk until we have the ability accurately and responsibly to vet those seeking entry here,” Sessions said. “This is not about religion; it is about national security.”
A three-judge panel of the West Coast appeals court on Monday kept in place a lower court’s injunction that halts the executive order, which puts a temporary ban on travel by citizens of six Muslim-majority countries.
“We conclude that the president, in issuing the Executive Order, exceeded the scope of the authority delegated to him by Congress,” the 9th Circuit’s opinion states. “In suspending the entry of more than 180 million nationals from six countries, suspending the entry of all refugees, and reducing the cap on the admission of refugees from 110,000 to 50,000 for the 2017 fiscal year, the president did not meet the essential pre-condition to exercising his delegated authority: The president must make a sufficient finding that the entry of these classes of people would be ‘detrimental to the interests of the United States.'”
The Justice Department is seeking a Supreme Court review of the injunctions put in place by the 4th and 9th circuits, and Sessions said his department “will continue” to seek review from the court.
