Supreme Court Allows Watered-Down Travel Ban To Take Effect For Now

The ban is one of the president’s most controversial campaign promises.

• People from the six countries listed in President Trump’s travel ban ― Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Sudan, Yemen ― can only travel to the U.S. if they possess a “bona fide” relationship with the U.S.

• The vast majority of people who would be coming to the U.S. from these countries can easily prove that relationship.

• Neither refugees being resettled in the U.S. nor visa holders will be impacted.

The Supreme Court has agreed to review President Donald Trump’s travel ban in October, allowing a limited version of the order to go into effect in the meantime.

Individuals from the six Muslim-majority countries affected by the ban ― Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen ― who have a bona fide relationship with the United States aren’t blocked from entering the country.

The court’s order released Monday said a “close familial relationship is required” for individuals who wish to live with or visit a family member. When the relationship is with an entity like a university, it must be “formal, documented, and formed in the ordinary course, rather than for the purpose of evading” the executive order.

As an example, they said, students and lecturers would have a formal relationship, as would someone who accepted employment with an American company. But it would not apply to someone who “enters into a relationship simply to avoid” the executive order. For example, the order said, “a nonprofit group devoted to immigration issues may not contact foreign nationals from the designated countries, add them to client lists, and then secure their entry by claiming injury from their exclusion.”

The announcement shouldn’t disrupt most of the people who would otherwise be traveling to the U.S. from these six countries. Many refugees who are resettled in the U.S. come from the six targeted countries, but since they work with federally funded resettlement agencies they should qualify as having a bona fide relationship with the U.S.

“The parts that are allowed to go into effect are actually incredibly narrow,” Becca Heller, executive director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, said Monday. “Almost anyone coming to the U.S. who has a visa or who has been in the refugee program has some kind of tie to a U.S. person.”

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