by Tyler Fransen
President Donald Trump’s controversial immigration and travel ban from seven majority Muslim countries has been going back and forth in the nation’s highest courts.
James Robart, a federal judge in Seattle, put a hold on the immigration ban Friday. Six days after the president signed the executive order. On Saturday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an appeal to Robart’s ruling and requested the ban be reinstated. On Sunday the appeals court denied the motion, which means Robart’s ruling has been upheld for now.
Seemingly unrelated to Robart’s ruling, but nonetheless coincidental, Trump supporters were greeted to an email Friday saying that the ban, “is not about religion [it] is about keeping our country safe.”
Before Robart’s ruling Friday, there was serious controversy surrounding the provisions of the ban and their effects. Reports circulated that officials at airports were turning away people with valid green cards from entering the U.S.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said the ban did not apply to green card holders, but, did add, that there would be additional screening for those who traveled to the countries on the list.
Priebus and the Trump administration included on the banned list the nations of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Sudan, Somalia and Libya. Those seven countries, according to Priebus, were on the list because Congress and the Obama Administration believed them to harbor terrorist activity. However, the Trump Administration defended the ban by citing the terror attacks on Sept. 11 as reasoning for the ban. Despite the fact that none of the countries of origin of the Sept. 11 hijackers were placed on the ban list.
Meet the Press host Chuck Todd pressed Priebus about the nations not included on the list, and also remarked that some of the countries that were not included on the list, had ties to Trump’s business operations abroad.
Priebus said that the decision to leave off certain countries was not influenced by the president’s business ties, but did say that there may have been a need to add more countries to the banned list.
As for Robart’s ruling, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) said that the court’s ruling would mean that the agency would reinstate the visas that were impacted by the ban. CNN National Correspondent Rene Marsh told Anderson Cooper that CBP informed the airline industry that things would be, “back to business as usual prior to the executive order.”
When the DOJ filed its appeal Saturday it was unclear if that would remain the case, but since the appeal was denied Sunday CBP will likely continue as they were prior to the immigration order.
Opponents of the ban saw Robart’s ruling as a victory in their favor, but supporters of the ban saw both the initial ruling and the DOJ’s denial of an appeal as an injustice. What is clear is that there will be likely more legal battles between the courts and the administration as this moves forward, and could very well head to the U.S. Supreme Court.
