Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has issued a temporary order blocking a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that would have limited President Trump’s travel ban.
The “administrative stay” issued by Kennedy on Monday puts on hold the ruling from the liberal federal appeals court which said the ban wouldn’t cover refugees working with U.S. refugee agencies and other refugees “covered by a formal assurance.”
The ruling allows the Trump administration “to exclude most refugees from entering the United States while the Supreme Court considers challenges to its revised travel ban,” The New York Times wrote.
Had the Supreme Court not acted, an appeals court ruling lifting the ban on refugees would have gone into effect on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court has now interceded three times to fine-tune the scope of Mr. Trump’s revised ban while it considers broader issues about its lawfulness. Issued in January and revised in March, the ban caused chaos at airports nationwide and gave rise to a global outcry, prompting a cascade of litigation as well.
Two federal appeals courts blocked central parts of the ban. One said it violated the Constitution because it discriminated based on religion, the other said that it exceeded the president’s statutory authority to control immigration.
In June, the Supreme Court agreed to hear appeals from those rulings and temporarily reinstated part of the ban — but only for people without “a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” The court did not specify who qualified as a close relative, though it did say spouses and mothers-in-law “clearly” counted.
The Trump administration interpreted the Supreme Court’s decision to mean excluding most refugees. It also said that only some relatives of American residents — parents, children, spouses, siblings, parents-in-law, sons- and daughters-in-law and people engaged to be married — could enter. The administration barred other relatives, including grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces and cousins.
But the administrative stay will likely only be in effect for a short period, as the full court is likely to issue a ruling on the matter within days.