Recent Supreme Court ruling demonstrates a change in attitude toward decision to support “Muslim ban”.
Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the third iteration of President Trump’s Travel Ban. This means the previous decisions made by Hawaii and Maryland federal courts blocking the ban have been overturned, effectively bringing the ban into implementation.
Trump’s Travel Ban on Muslim Countries Gets Huge Win[/tweetthis]
This is not a permanent decision. The travel ban can be found to be unconstitutional in a future decision and the ban is being legally challenged in several different courts.
The ban will mean citizens from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, groups in Venezuela, and North Korea will be unable to emigrate, live, work, or vacation in the United States. There are some exchanges, but they are few and require additional screening. This also means that ties to the United States, include family members, will not be enough to give someone an exception. 150 million people are now not allowed to come to the United States.
President Trump’s quotes about the ban have been used by lawyers to justify it being overturned. Trump made it clear that he was doing this to target Muslims, and was using recent terrorist attacks in Europe as a justification. Interestingly, Saudi Arabia, a country with a proven connection to religious extremism and terrorist attacks directed toward the United States, is not on the list.
The American Civil Liberties Union attacked the decision, arguing that Trump’s promotion of anti-Muslim videos on social media demonstrate a clear motivation of Islamophobia. The Council on American-Islamic Relations also criticized the decision but remained hopeful that the decision would be challenged in the future.
The Supreme Court did not give a reason for their decision. The two most liberal members of the court, Sotomayor and Ginsburg, disagreed with the decision.