Donald Trump's travel ban gets a partial green light from Supreme Court.

Supreme Court building. Public Domain

The Supreme Court has given a major victory to President Donald Trump by partially restoring his travel ban. The Hill. The Court said that preserving national security was an objective of the "highest order" and said that the lower court's ruling that stopped the ban put undue hardship onto the government. The ban effects six countries, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, all of which have links to terrorism. The ban is not a full ban though as it allows certain individuals that have a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States to enter the country. That will likely mean that people with family members or who secure a job will be allowed into the country. The Supreme Court will hear arguments this fall concerning a lawsuit against the travel ban. The Supreme Court also ruled that Donald Trump could reinstate his ban on refugees, allowing the same bona fide exception as the travel ban. Though the ruling was unsigned, Justice Clarence Thomas said that the nine justices all agreed that the lower court's ruling was questionable. 

My Comment:

This is a huge victory for Donald Trump. He is finally able to keep one of his campaign promises to prevent people from these countries from coming here until the vetting system gets better. And remember, this is only a 90 day ban, had it not been for interference from the courts, the ban would have expired already! Even the longer ban on refugees, 120 days, would be over now. 

It was clear that this ban's opposition was never about the law. It was always about hatred of Donald Trump. The President has always had control over who comes to the country or not. Other presidents who have banned groups from this country have not faced anything near the opposition Trump has. Barack Obama stopped taking in Iraqi refugees in 2011 after it was reveled that many Iraqi terrorists had entered the country and nobody said a word. 

Part of that was the sloppy way that President Trump enacted the ban. The first round of the Executive Order did not offer an exception for visa holders, which caused a lot of chaos and confusion. It was sloppy but most of the problems were fixed in the 2nd executive order. Still, the order could have been better executed in the first place and if it had been we might have gotten this ruling a much earlier than we did. There probably still would have been resistance, after all if Trump said it was a nice day people would still argue with him, but it would have been resolved much earlier. 

Unfortunately, the 9th Circuit Court decided to play politics with the 2nd order and blocked the ban. The 9th Circuit is notorious for issuing unconstitutional rulings and have been reversed somewhere between 60% to 80% depending on what source you use. It was always pretty clear that the Supreme Court was going to come down on the side of President Trump. The 9th Circuit is an activist court and they often make rulings that are unconstitutional. 

So, will this ban have an effect? At this point I am not sure. I always said that there were some very obvious countries that should have been included in the ban. Iraq was originally included but Trump dropped them after they reportedly improved their vetting. Afghanistan and Pakistan who have major insurgency problems were never included in the ban. And like I mentioned before, the ban was only temporary when it really probably should be long term or even permanent. 

Still, the fact of the matter was that something had to be done. The problem was much, much, MUCH worse than people are aware of. The ABC News report was just the tip of the iceberg... We needed much stronger vetting and if that vetting isn't in place by now, it should be in 90 days when the ban expires. It will also reduce the number of refugees with is also a major victory. 

It is amazing to me how fast this story dropped off of social media. Currently the story is no longer trending on Twitter and on Yahoo it wasn't on the front page. Google News still had it as the top story but it really should be everywhere else. It just goes to show that the media doesn't want to let Trump have any victories at all...