SCOTUS CANCELS TRAVEL BAN ARGUMENTS | What This Means For The New Term

September 26, 2017

Yesterday, the Supreme Court abruptly canceled oral arguments on PRESIDENT TRUMP’S travel ban, “signaling the beginning of the end for a politically charged legal case that could have produced a blockbuster ruling on the clash between presidential power and claims of religious discrimination.” Michael D. Shear, Ron Nixon and Adam Liptak with The New York Times report on the travel ban 3.0 and answer some questions about how it will be implemented and perhaps challenged again in courts. 

When the Supreme Court put off the hearing on the travel ban, it asked for briefs on whether there is anything for the justices to decide given the updates to the restrictions. Matt Zapotosky, Robert Barnes and Devlin Barrett with The Washington Post report on just how expansive the new ban is and how it differs from the first two bans issued by the Trump administration.

In the Los Angeles Times, Jaweed Kaleem and Melissa Etehad note that after months of swift court victories for opponents of the Trump travel ban, these opponents may face their greatest challenge yet with this new ban. “Experts said the addition of nations without Muslim majorities — North Korea and Venezuela — and Chad, which has a slight Muslim majority, hurt the argument that the ban is directed only at Muslims. The addition of North Korea is somewhat of a formality as, in practice, almost no North Koreans are currently allowed in the U.S. The ban on Venezuelans is limited to a small sliver of the nation’s population.”

The Editorial Board of The New York Times addresses DONALD TRUMP’S travel ban and considers whether it will actually make any Americans safer. “The answer, as best as anyone can tell based on publicly available information, is no.” The NYT concludes, “In the end, debating whether Sunday’s travel ban is fairer or better thought out than its predecessors is beside the point. Its political function is the same — the latest gambit in a cynical, unceasing effort by an embattled president to inflame public fears and woo the xenophobes in his base.”

“MR. TRUMP’S latest order may be the result of a more considered process than were the first two versions. But the end product is still lacking in sense.” That’s the Editorial Board of The Washington Post giving its two cents on the updates made to the new travel ban — which it calls nothing more “than a fig leaf to disguise a would-be ‘Muslim ban.'”

With the travel ban case canceled for now, and opponents still promising to challenge the policy in court, Amy Davidson with The New Yorker explains for us what all this means for the Supreme Court. She also notes that any case against the ban could ultimately come up against the question of internment and the Korematsu case which has never been formally overturned by SCOTUS.