Appeals Court Rules Against Trump’s Revised Travel Ban

Ruling says president appeared to target Muslims unlawfully.

A Virginia-based federal appeals court on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump’s request to reinstate his revised executive order on immigration, saying the president likely acted with improper motives when seeking to temporarily bar U.S. entry for travelers from six Muslim-majority countries.

The executive order “speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination,” Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote in an opinion for the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond.

The case was considered by the full Fourth Circuit, with 13 judges participating. Ten of those judges ruled against the president, and three dissented.

The ruling is another in a series of legal setbacks for the White House. It potentially sets the stage for review by the Supreme Court if the president makes good on his earlier pledge to appeal to the high court.

If the Supreme Court does intervene, the case would mark a major, highly unusual test of presidential power less than a year into the new administration.

The Fourth Circuit ruling affirmed a Maryland judge’s decision in March that blocked the president from implementing a 90-day ban on travel for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Thursday’s ruling came in one of the two appeals on the executive order being pursued by the Trump administration. The administration is also fighting a Hawaii judge’s ruling that blocked the travel restrictions and halted Mr. Trump’s planned suspension of the U.S. program for admitting refugees.

That case is pending at the San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit, and a ruling could come any time. Thursday’s Fourth Circuit decision assures that the travel restrictions will remain on hold for now regardless of how the Ninth Circuit rules.

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