In travel ban decision, Supreme Court shows judicial deference to presidency

By Henry Gass June 26, 2018 Articles

In one of its most significant decisions of the year, the United States Supreme Court today upheld President Trump’s travel ban executive order, ending litigation that has spanned almost the entire Trump presidency and three versions of the executive order itself.

In a 5-to-4 vote along ideological lines, the high court reversed a lower court injunction blocking the order’s implementation, finding that the order both fell within the broad powers delegated to the presidency in immigration and national security matters and did not violate the Constitution’s prohibition on the establishment of a single religion. The travel ban has been widely criticized since it was first implemented, a week after Mr. Trump took office, as being an effort to legally implement his campaign promise of “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

In a fiery dissent read from the bench this morning, Justice Sonia Sotomayor accused the majority of hypocrisy in how it defended the Constitution’s religion clauses and equated the court’s decision with its infamous Korematsu decision in 1944 declaring the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II constitutional – a decision the majority justices Tuesday took the historic step of expressly rejecting in their decision. Another dissent by Justice Stephen Breyer encouraged lower courts to examine how the Trump administration applies the executive order moving forward – in particular the case-by-case exemptions the order allows for – features that could lead to more litigation.

Ultimately, however, amid the maelstrom of litigation and controversial statements made by Trump and members of his administration on the motivations behind the executive order, the Supreme Court elected to defer to the significant authority given to presidents on immigration and national security issues…

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