After being rejected by lower courts, the Supreme Court is allowing Trump’s travel ban to go into limited effect for a period of 90 days. Foreign nationals from six countries who lack any “bona fide relationship with any person or entity in the United States” will be banned. Those having formal relationships, such as those having family members in the US, foreign students accepted to US universities or an employee who has accepted a job with a company in the US, will still be able to travel to the US the court said.
The travel ban bars people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the US for 90 days (outside of the “bona fide” relationship exception). It could take effect in as little as 72 hours. Trump called the decision “a clear victory for our national security.” “As President, I cannot allow people into our country who want to do us harm,” he added in a statement. “I want people who can love the United States and all of its citizens, and who will be hardworking and productive.” Mysteriously, Saudi Arabia is not part of the travel ban, even though 19 of the 9/11 terrorists were from that country. In addition, Saudi Arabia practices and supports Wahhabism, the most extreme form of Islam. Two reports by the Department of Homeland Security that recently became public show that no domestic terror plot or attempt has been committed by anyone from the six nations now on the list.
The court ruling allows the ban until the court meets again in the Fall for further discussion. However, the ban is only for 90 days. It is unlikely that this particular ban will be in effect when the court is ready to discuss the topic again. What will Trump and the Justice department do? The reasoning for the ban was to give the administration time to investigate possible solutions to ensure terrorists are not able to enter the United States. As it happens, it has been more than 90 days since Trump signed the first executive order. Has the administration been doing nothing during that time? Could they have been investigating solutions since January? What does limiting people’s entrance actually allow them to do that they couldn’t do while people were coming in? Is it because of staffing, are the people working at the customs gates at JFK the actual people that will be pulled off their jobs to analyze data and develop our new security protocols? Probably not.
The significance of the Supreme Court ruling isn’t the banning of travelers for the next 90 days. The government isn’t going to be able to analyze anything differently than when people are arriving on daily flights. What the approval of the travel ban does do, is set the ground work for a six or twelve month extension of the ban for further research. When 90 days come and go, the administration will be able to claim that they either need additional time (an extension) or will propose a new ban based on the research. Trump will then claim that research has shown that the ban needs to be expanded to additional countries, or cover additional high-risk pools of people.
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