Ninth Circuit Upholds Block Against President Trump's Travel Ban

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday to uphold the injunction against President Donald Trump's travel ban, which temporarily bans the issuance of new visas to nationals of six majority-Muslim countries and also temporarily suspends the United States refugee program.

The court concluded that in issuing the executive order, Trump exceeded the scope of the authority given to him by Congress under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which gives the president broad authority in setting immigration policy.

In May, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals also upheld an injunction against the travel ban. After the ruling was announced, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the case would be appealed to the Supreme Court. Shortly afterwards, the DOJ filed papers asking the nation's highest court to overturn the fourth circuit's ruling.

At the daily press briefing Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the administration was reviewing the order and it felt confident that the travel ban was lawful and would be upheld by the Supreme Court.

"The President must make a sufficient finding that the entry of these classes of people would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States,”" the opinion from the ninth circuit said. "Further, the Order runs afoul of other provisions of the INA that prohibit nationality-based discrimination and require the President to follow a specific process when setting the annual cap on the admission of refugees."

Spicer was asked Monday whether the president was hurting his own agenda with his Twitter habit, as many rulings against Trump have relied on public statements made by the president. Spicer said it was important to look at the law and not the president's statements. However, the opinion from the ninth circuit found that there was no sufficient legal basis for the executive order.

The first attempt by Trump in January to curb immigration from nations he sees as terror-prone also failed to hold up in court.

That executive order, a more extreme version of the current one, was halted by federal judges in both Brooklyn and Seattle just one day after the president signed it — but not before creating mass confusion and chaos at airports across the U.S., as Customs and Border Protection agents began detaining immigrants and putting them on planes back to their home countries.

You can read the full ninth circuit opinion here.

Patch will update this report.

Photo by Simone Wilson/Patch