Boy… there’s a lot of SCOTUS news happening at the moment. Now there’s this:
The justices granted parts of his administration’s emergency request to put the March 6 executive order into effect immediately while the legal battle continues.
The court said that the travel ban is in effect “with respect to foreign nationals who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
The court also said it would allow a 120-day ban on all refugees entering the United States to go into effect on the same grounds.
Three of the court’s conservatives said they would have granted Trump’s request in full, including Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch.
While I think it is important that this issue be resolved by the courts to reaffirm the President’s authority in these matters, I am left wondering why the ban is still necessary. Remember that this was supposed to be a temporary ban while the administration firmed up its vetting procedures for foreigners traveling to the U.S. Those new vetting procedures should be in place now, thus rendering the temporary travel ban moot. If those procedures aren’t ready and in place, why not? That was, after all, the long-term goal.
I have read about the new vetting procedures not being in place and about the number of legal and illegal immigrants but with all the fake news, I am admittedly unsure about the true facts. The one thing I do know is the Supreme Court stayed the lower court’s injunction as it relates to person(s) without a relationship to a person in the US.
Guess Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan were just not enough to swing the vote.