A federal appeals court on Monday took up the fight over who is blocked from coming to the U.S. from six Muslim-majority countries under President Trump’s travel ban after the Supreme Court allowed part of the ban to be enforced.
Trump’s second executive order implementing the travel ban aimed to prevent nationals from six Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — from entering the U.S. for 90 days. While agreeing to hear arguments about the travel ban in the coming term, the Supreme Court lifted lower courts’ blockades of Trump’s travel ban “to the extent the injunctions prevent enforcement of [the order] with respect to foreign nationals who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the high court’s decision to hear the case, but wrote a dissent joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch that predicted a “flood of litigation” stemming from which categories of individuals would prove to have a “sufficient connection” to the U.S. under the president’s ban.
The litigation hit the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday and again pitted the Trump administration against Hawaii.
Hashim Mooppan, a deputy assistant attorney general, argued that the Supreme Court’s action showed it agreed with Trump’s order in determining who was blocked from entering the country.
“Congress has typically referred to ‘close family’ to refer to parents, children, spouses and siblings,” Mooppan said. “And the fact that we’ve also covered [mothers]-in-law because the Supreme Court said that the mother-in-law was covered and because that mother-in-law relationship reflects the fact that a family unit, once you’re married, your spouse’s family becomes your family, that one fact can’t be enough to let the plaintiffs pick up not just grandparents, your honor, but aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and cousins that is just far too much weight.”
But Colleen Sinzdak, counsel for Hawaii, countered that the Trump administration harbored a “distorted understanding” of the Supreme Court’s order.
“The Supreme Court did not, as the government claims, draw arbitrary lines based on a cramped understanding of the term ‘relationship’ and based on inapt provisions of the INA [Immigration and Nationality Act],” Sinzdak said. “To the contrary, the Supreme Court issued a limited stay order sounding in principles of equity and practicality. With respect to equity, the Supreme Court held that when a foreign national has a relationship with an individual or an entity the harm inflicted by her exclusion outweighs the alleged harms that the government asserted.”
As the three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals considers arguments over the scope of the high court’s order, the Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments over the travel ban itself in October.
