Travel Ban III: Update

On Friday, December 22, 2017, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle affirmed in part and vacated in part the preliminary injunction order of the district court regarding the Trump Administration’s third travel ban attempt. This follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s order for a stay pending the resolution of the Ninth Circuit and Fourth Circuit appeals.

In their opinion, the judges concluded that the executive order conflicts with the Immigrant and Nationality Act’s “prohibition on nationality-based discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas,” and that the “President’s issuance of the proclamation once again exceeds the scope of his delegated authority.”

Travel Ban III currently blocks travel to the United States from Iran, Chad, Yemen, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Libya, and Venezuela, after modifications to the list in the first two bans. The government argues that instituting the ban will encourage these nations to improve their own screening, while the appeals court’s order counters that “the proclamation’s duration can be considered definite only to the extent one presumes that the restrictions will, indeed incentivize countries to improve their practices. There is little evidence to support such an assumption.”