Another US Appeals Court Keeps Travel Ban Blocked

Another US appeals court upheld a decision blocking President Donald Trump's revised travel ban Monday, dealing the administration another legal defeat as the Supreme Court considers a separate case on the issue, the AP reports. The ruling from a unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said the president violated US immigration law by discriminating against people based on their nationality and by failing to demonstrate that their entry into the country would hurt American interests. "Immigration, even for the president, is not a one-person show," the judges said. "The president's authority is subject to certain statutory and constitutional restraints." It keeps in place a decision by US District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii that he based largely on Trump's campaign statements calling for a "complete and total shutdown" of Muslims entering the US.

Watson ruled that the true purpose of the temporary ban on travel from six mostly Muslim nations was to discriminate against Islam—not to protect national security. That violated the Constitution's prohibition on the government officially favoring or disfavoring any religion, he said. The 9th Circuit judges said they didn't need to reach the constitutional question because the travel ban violated immigration law, and thus wasn't allowed. The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia also ruled against the travel ban May 25, citing the president's campaign statements as evidence that the 90-day ban is "steeped in animus and directed at a single religious group." The administration has appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court. The high court is considering a request to reinstate the policy and could act before the justices wind up their work at the end of June. (More Trump travel ban stories.)