The Justice Department late Friday asked the Supreme Court to reverse a ruling by a federal judge that limited the Trump administration’s enforcement of its travel ban.
On Saturday, the Supreme Court gave Hawaii until noon on Tuesday to respond to the Justice Department’s motion.
Hawaii District Court Judge Derrick Watson on Thursday ruled that part of the Trump administration’s travel ban is too broad, which means the government cannot block grandparents and other relatives of people in the U.S. as intended.
Watson said the federal government cannot use the executive order to “exclude grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins of persons in the United States.” Watson also ruled that a refugee who is in the process of being resettled to the U.S. by a placement agency cannot be blocked from travel.
“The district court adopted a boundless conception of ‘close family’ — covering grandparents, grandchildren, siblings-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins — that essentially eliminates the ‘close’ requirement by covering virtually every conceivable familial connection,” the Justice Department wrote in its motion to the Supreme Court.
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Friday whether Watson’s ruling is a proper interpretation of the higher court’s decision last month that allowed the Trump administration’s ban on foreign nationals from six Muslim-majority countries to go forward in a limited scope.
In that ruling, the Supreme Court said the Trump administration could not apply the temporary ban to these travelers if they had a “bona fide relationship with the U.S.”
The high court did not define what “bona fide relationship” means in practice, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas warned at the time that the lack of clarity would incite future litigation.
The Trump administration defined “bona fide relationship” to mean close family members only: parents, spouses, siblings, children, and engaged partners.
It wanted to block entry of grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins from the six countries.
Watson said this interpretation of “bona fide relationship” was too narrow.
The Justice Department countered that the district court’s interpretation was too broad.
As Buzzfeed reported Saturday, the Justice Department also filed a motion with the Ninth Circuit Court. It said “the government respectfully seeks a stay from this Court pending appeal or the Supreme Court’s disposition of the motion for clarification.”
