WASHINGTON – The Trump administration on Wednesday made its final plea to the US Supreme Court to allow its proposed ban on travellers from six Muslim-majority countries to go into effect as the justices weigh how to handle the hotly contested dispute.
The court papers filed by President Donald Trump’s administration complete the briefing on the government’s emergency application asking the justices to block lower court injunctions in favour of challengers to the ban. The Supreme Court could now act at any time.
The lower court rulings blocked the 90-day ban on travellers from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and a 120-day ban on all refugees entering the United States to give the government time to implement stronger vetting procedures.
In the court papers, Acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall said the lower courts had wrongly second-guessed the president on national security policy when reviewing the March 6 executive order.
“The president expressly determined that the order’s provisions are needed to promote national security, but the lower courts here … nullified that judgment,” he wrote.
In court papers filed on Tuesday, lawyers for the state of Hawaii and individual plaintiffs in Maryland urged the high court not to allow the ban go into effect. (Reuters)
