Update: President Trump celebrated SCOTUS's decision with a tweet.

SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS TRUMP TRAVEL BAN. Wow! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2018

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As was widely expected, the Supreme Court has handed the Trump administration its first major court victory over its travel ban after three successive versions of the ban were challenged by lower courts. In a 5-4 vote, the conservatives on the court backed the Trump administration, rejecting the notion that the ban discriminated against Muslims and refusing to question the administration's national security claims. The Supreme Court also rejected the San Francisco appeals' court's finding that Trump had exceeded his authority over immigration.

As we pointed out yesterday, the court had appeared to side with Trump during oral arguments back in April, when the White House has argued that the ban is necessary to protect the US from attacks plotted by foreign jihadis, and conservative justices on the court had previously suggested that they'd be unwilling to question Trump on his claims that this represents an imminent national security threat.

In its opinion, the Court says the plaintiff failed "to overcome the statutory language" granting the President the ability to restrict "the entry of aliens" into the US for national security reasons:

By its plain language, §1182(f) grants the President broad discretion to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States. The President lawfully exercised that discretion based on his findings—following a worldwide, multi-agency review—that entry of the covered aliens would be detrimental to the national interest. And plaintiffs’ attempts to identify a conflict with other provisions in the INA, and their appeal to the statute’s purposes and legislative history, fail to overcome the clear statutory language.

Trump famously issued the first version of the ban just a week after he took office, sending crowds of protesters to airports where travelers from affected countries were stranded. However, that ban was almost immediately blocked by the courts. A second version that was issued two months later was also blocked, though the Supreme Court allowed part of it to take effect in June 2017 when it agreed to hear the Trump administration's case. At the beginning of the court's term in January, it agreed to hear a challenge against the administration's third ban, which included two non-majority Muslim countries, North Korea and Venezuela, according to the New York Times.

Here's a map of the countries affected by the ban:

Restrictions vary on the specifics depending on the country, but for the most part, citizens of these countries will be forbidden from emigrating to the US, and many residents will be barred from working, studying and vacationing in the states.

Read the full opinion below:

17-965_h315 by Zerohedge on Scribd