Legal challenges to the Trump travel ban

Executive Order 13769

Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States
Executive Order 13769 in the Federal Register
Type	Executive order
Signed by	Donald Trump on January 27, 2017 (2017-01-27)
Federal Register details
Federal Register document number	2017-02281
Publication date	1 February 2017
Document citation	82 FR 8977

Executive Order 13769 was signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on January 27, 2017, and quickly became the subject of legal challenges in the federal courts of the United States.^[1][2] The order sought to restrict travel from seven Muslim majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The plaintiffs challenging the order argued that it contravened the United States Constitution, federal statutes, or both. On March 16, 2017, Executive Order 13769 was superseded by Executive Order 13780, which took legal objections into account and removed Iraq from affected countries.^[3] Then on September 24, 2017, Executive Order 13780 was superseded by Presidential Proclamation 9645 which is aimed at more permanently establishing travel restrictions on those countries except Sudan, while adding North Korea and Venezuela which had not previously been included.^[4]

Legal challenges to these orders were brought almost immediately after their issuance. From January 28 to 31 almost 50 cases were filed in federal courts.^[5] The courts granted temporary relief including multiple temporary restraining orders (TRO) that barred the enforcement of major parts of the executive order. The chief TRO was issued by a Washington State federal court and was explicitly nationwide in scope.^[6][7] That TRO specifically blocked the executive branch from enforcing provisions of the executive order that (1) suspend entry into the U.S. for people from seven countries for 90 days and (2) place limitations on the acceptance of refugees including "any action that prioritizes the refugee claims of certain religious minorities."^[7] The TRO also allowed "people from the seven countries who had been authorized to travel, along with vetted refugees from all nations, to enter the country."^[7] The Trump administration appealed the TRO to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which ruled against the government and allowed the stay to stand.^[8]

The second Executive Order, #13780, removed Iraq from the list of targeted countries and allowed more exemptions. Portions of that order were blocked by a Hawaii federal judge on March 15. On June 26, the Supreme Court partially stayed some of the injunctions that had been put on the order by federal appeals courts earlier, allowing the executive order to mostly go into effect. Oral argument concerning the legality of the order was to be held in October 2017.^[9]

The parties challenging the executive orders included both private individuals (some of whom were blocked from entering the U.S. or detained following the executive order's issuance) and the states of Washington and Minnesota represented by their state attorneys general. Other organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), also challenged the order in court. Fifteen Democratic state attorneys general released a joint statement calling the executive order "unconstitutional, un-American and unlawful"^[10] and seventeen states filed an amicus brief in support of the challenge to the order.^[11]

In response to the issuance of Presidential Proclamation 9645, the Supreme Court canceled its scheduled October hearing on the executive order that the proclamation replaced, declining to rule on its merits as it was about to expire. On October 17, a U.S. district judge in Hawaii issued an opinion saying that much of the proclamation is unconstitutional.^[12][13] On June 26, 2018, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court opinion and upheld Proclamation 9645 in a 5–4 decision.^[14]