Travel Ban III: SCOTUS Keeps Ban in Effect Pending Appeal

On December 4, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an unsigned order, granting an application for a stay, pending the hearing and resolution of the expedited appeal to the 9th circuit. This order stayed the preliminary injunction on Travel Ban III that was granted by Judge Watson in Trump v. Hawaii (WL 5987406 (U.S. 2017)).

This means that Travel Ban III (see recent updates from November 3 and October 3) will be in full effect until the Ninth Circuit decides the government’s appeal and/or when and if a petition for certiorari (i.e. a request for appeal to the Supreme Court) is filed with the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court grants the petition and decides the matter. The Supreme Court made no indication for its reasoning and Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor disagreed and would have denied the application. The Court also urged the Ninth Circuit to decide the appeal “with appropriate dispatch.”

Previously, on November 13, 2017, the Ninth Circuit stayed District Court Judge Watson’s preliminary injunction except as to “foreign nationals who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States…” consistent with the Supreme Court’s action on Trump v. Int’l Refugee Assistance Project, 137 S.Ct. 2080, 2088 (2017).