Wall Street Journal
By Brent Kendall
October 10, 2017
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court is one step closer to sidestepping a decision on President Donald Trump’s expiring travel ban, even while lawsuits on a new version of the ban move forward.
The high court late Tuesday dismissed one of two pending cases on Mr. Trump’s executive order from March that barred travel to the U.S. by people from six Muslim majority countries. The president said the ban was needed for national security, while his critics said the prohibition unlawfully targeted people because of their religion.
The justices, in a two-paragraph order, said the case was moot because the old six-country ban expired. It was replaced by a new, third version of the travel ban the president issued Sept. 24 that focuses on nationals from eight countries, including the non-Muslim majority nations of North Korea and Venezuela.
Lawsuits already are moving forward in lower courts challenging the new restrictions.
As part of its dismissal, the Supreme Court vacated a May ruling by the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va., that said the president’s last travel ban “drips with religious intolerance” and was likely unconstitutional.
The high court said wiping out the lower court ruling was consistent with its established practices for cases that become moot. The court said it was taking no position on the legality of the travel ban.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the court’s decision to take the lower court ruling off the books.
One additional case on the expiring travel ban remains pending at the Supreme Court, though the court could soon dismiss it, too. The second case is from Hawaii and raises additional legal questions about the order’s ban on refugees. That prohibition on refugees remains in place for another two weeks, so the Hawaii case isn’t moot yet.
The Justice Department had urged the high court to dismiss the cases and toss out the lower court rulings, while challengers to the expiring travel ban wanted the court to go ahead and consider the legality of the president’s actions. At the very least, they wanted the lower court decisions to remain in place even if the justices decided the cases were moot.
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