The Supreme Court Justices issued a stay Monday that allows President Donald Trump to carry out the new policy even on those with U.S. connections, at least for now. | Getty Images Supreme Court lets Trump fully impose latest travel ban

President Donald Trump’s beleaguered travel ban policy chalked up a significant victory at the Supreme Court on Monday as the justices allowed full implementation of the latest version of the restrictions and indicated that the justices’ concerns about the president’s actions on the issue might be eroding.

Lower-court rulings had exempted from the travel ban foreigners with “bona fide” family, business or educational ties to the United States, but the justices issued an unsigned stay order on Monday that allows Trump to carry out the new policy even on those with U.S. connections, at least for now.


The third iteration of the president’s travel ban sought to limit to varying degrees issuance of visas for travel to the U.S. by citizens of eight countries, six of which are majority Muslim.

Only two justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, indicated that they would have denied the Trump administration’s request to fully implement the policy, which the president issued by proclamation in September.

What appeared to be a 7-2 vote to let Trump proceed is a notable swing on the Supreme Court from the 6-3 vote in June in which a majority of the justices ruled that those with a “bona fide relationship” would not be subject to an earlier version of the travel ban.

In the June order, three justices from the conservative wing — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — were the only members of the court willing to let the president implement that policy.

“I think that’s very significant,” said Professor Josh Blackman of South Texas College of Law. “Generally, when Justice [Anthony] Kennedy votes to grant the stay, that means they’re going to reverse” the lower courts.

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Ginsburg and Sotomayor also passed up the opportunity to explain why they disagreed with their colleagues’ latest move.

“They didn’t write anything. They may just see where it’s headed,” Blackman said.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a statement Monday evening, calling the court's decision “a substantial victory for the safety and security of the American people.”

“The Constitution gives the president the responsibility and power to protect this country from all threats foreign and domestic, and this order remains vital to accomplishing those goals," he said.

Immigrant-rights advocates were troubled by the high court’s action, but sought to emphasize that it was not a resolution of the legal issues behind the policies, all of which critics regard as thinly disguised versions of the Muslim ban that Trump promised during his presidential campaign.

“Let’s be clear, the # SCOTUS stay order is a huge blow for those who have stood up in the streets, airports & courts against the Islamophobia embodied in Trump’s Muslim Bans,” Karen Tumlin, legal director of the National Immigration Law Center, wrote on Twitter. “It’s important to remember that the Supreme Court has NOT addressed the legal merits of the latest Muslim Ban nor the human impacts w/its order today.”

However, the court’s lopsided split on Monday to allow implementation of the newest policy suggests that challengers may be running out of steam with their arguments that the president’s ban is impermissibly tainted by bias he showed during the presidential campaign. With each revision of the policy, it has been reviewed more thoroughly by lawyers and executive branch officials in a way that the first version issued seven days after Trump’s inauguration clearly was not.

Some lawyers also said that, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the Supreme Court’s order could serve as a signal to two appeals courts set to hear arguments this week on the third travel ban policy. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to convene on the issue in Seattle on Wednesday, while the full bench of the 4th Circuit — save for a couple of judges who’ve recused themselves — is set to take up the issue Friday in Richmond, Virginia.

The justices’ stay order came just hours after lawyers in the 4th Circuit cases sent the Supreme Court a letter that they plan to include in the official records of those cases three anti-Muslim videos retweeted by Trump last week.

Trump faced criticism for sharing the tweets, originally posted by a British ultranationalist political leader.

The latest travel ban policy placed a range of restrictions on travelers from six majority-Muslim countries — Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen — as well as North Korea and Venezuela.

While the travel limits in the new policy are indefinite, they are narrower and more tailored than in earlier versions of the ban. In addition, a waiver policy allowing issuance of visas under some circumstances appears to have become more robust, although it is still not as broad as the carve-out the high court ordered on a temporary basis in June or the parallel exemptions the lower courts required for the newest version of the ban.

Ted Hesson contributed to this report.

