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U.S. High Court Temporarily Restores Trump’s Refugee Travel Ban

A U.S. Supreme Court justice issued a short-term order restoring Trump’s ban on refugees.

U.S. High Court Temporarily Restores Trump’s Refugee Travel Ban
Travelers pull luggage while walking through LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in New York, U.S. (Photographer: David Williams/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- A U.S. Supreme Court justice on Monday issued a short-term order restoring President Donald Trump’s ban on thousands of refugees seeking entry to the country.

The order issued by Justice Anthony Kennedy puts a lower court ruling on hold until the high court decides whether to grant the administration’s request for a longer-term order. Kennedy ordered those opposing the administration to file court papers by noon Tuesday.

A federal appeals court ruled last week that the administration must temporarily admit refugees if a resettlement agency had promised that it would provide basic services for them. That decision was set to take effect Tuesday, and as many as 24,000 refugees have received such assurances, the administration said in papers filed with the high court.

The ruling on refugees “will disrupt the status quo and frustrate orderly implementation of the order’s refugee provisions that this court made clear months ago could take effect,” acting U.S. Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall wrote.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Oct. 10 on President Donald Trump’s overall travel order, which imposed a 90-day ban on people entering the U.S. from six mostly Muslim countries and a 120-day ban on refugees, to give officials time to assess vetting procedures.

The high court on June 26 cleared part of the ban to take effect in the meantime, while saying the U.S. had to admit at least some people with close relatives in the U.S. A series of court decisions since then have said that order must include people with grandparents and cousins in this country.

The administration said Monday that while it disagreed with that part of last week’s ruling by a San Francisco-based appeals court, for now it was contesting only the portion of the order related to refugees.

Trump’s March 6 executive order said the temporary travel ban and refugee ban would give officials time to assess U.S. vetting procedures and would address the risk that terrorists could slip into the country. Lower courts had blocked the ban, saying Trump overstepped his authority and unconstitutionally targeted Muslims.

The case is Trump v. Hawaii, 16-1540.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laurie Asseo in Washington at lasseo1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Bill Faries