President Trump's Justice Department used a segregation-era court ruling that protected Mississippi officials from having to integrate swimming pools to defend the administration's travel ban.

In a legal brief, the Justice Department cited 1962's Palmer V. Thompson to argue that probing officials' motives for the travel ban is “fraught with practical ‘pitfalls’ and ‘hazards’ that would make courts’ task ‘extremely difficult.’”

In Palmer, the court found that city officials could close five community swimming pools in Jackson, Miss., instead of desegregating them.

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"There is an element of futility in a judicial attempt to invalidate a law because of the bad motives of its supporters,” the majority opinion reads.

The legal brief was highlighted by John-Paul Schnapper-Casteras, who serves as special counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, on the “Take Care” blog.

He called the Trump administration's argument "stunning."

"At best," Schnapper-Casteras wrote, the ruling "allowed pretextual measures for avoiding racial integration ― and, more realistically, facilitated segregation by turning a blind eye to what was clearly going on in the City of Jackson.”