Supreme Court blocks 9th Circuit decision that would have allowed more refugees to enter the country
U.S. Supreme Court Building/Shutterstock.com.
Updated: The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked part of a federal appeals court decision that would have required the federal government to allow about 24,000 refugees to enter the United States.
None of the justices indicated disagreement with the stay, which continues until further order of the court, report the New York Times, the Washington Post and SCOTUSblog.
The stay allows the federal government to continue implementing its 120-day ban and cap on refugees without bona fide relationships to people and entities in the United States, including a ban on refugees who have formal assurances from resettlement agencies that services will be provided when they arrive.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled refugees with such assurances are exempt from President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban. That portion of the 9th Circuit ruling is stayed.
The current refugee cap is 50,000, which is significantly less than the 110,000 refugees President Barack Obama allowed in 2016, the New York Times reports in a separate story. Now the Trump administration is considering lowering the cap even further, according to the Times, which relies on anonymous sources.
The Supreme Court stay doesn’t affect another portion of the 9th Circuit decision that said the travel ban can’t be used to exclude grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins of persons in the United States. The Justice Department had not sought a stay of that portion of the decision, though it disagreed with the interpretation.
The 9th Circuit decision had reviewed the federal government’s implementation of a June 26 Supreme Court order that said the Trump administration can’t enforce its travel ban against those with “a credible claim of a bona fide relationship” with a person or entity in the United States.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hold oral arguments on Trump’s revised travel ban on Oct. 10. The case is Hawaii v. Trump.
Updated at 2:40 to report Trump is considering lowering the refugee cap.
