Supreme Court Upholds Trump's Travel Ban on Muslim Countries
*By Alisha Haridasani*
The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld President Trump’s temporary ban on immigrants and refugees from several mostly Muslim countries, rejecting the arguments that the policy went beyond presidential powers and discriminated against one religion.
“The president has lawfully exercised the broad discretion granted to him,” said Chief Justice John Roberts, [writing](http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/images/06/26/travel.ban.pdf) for the majority.
The 5-4 ruling fell along partisan lines, and the difference between the two sides fundamentally boiled down to a close reading of the Constitution as it applied to the travel policy versus a broader approach to the case.
"Certainly the conservative block of the Supreme Court was looking very narrowly at the president's power," said Joe Williams, senior news editor at U.S. News. "The opposing side was looking more at whether or not this was the right thing to do."
The justices who dissented pointed to Trump's campaign promise to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. as potentially motivating the policy, in which case it would be unlawful.
“The United States of America is a nation built upon the promise of religious liberty,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a strongly-worded dissent. “The court’s decision today fails to safeguard that principle.”
Judge Sotomayor even went so far as to compare Trump's policy to the internment of Japanese people during the second World War.
But the majority of conservative judges concluded that the president's campaign rhetoric was irrelevant and didn't negate his right to determine immigration policies.
The president responded jubilantly, describing the ruling as “a tremendous victory for the American people and for our Constitution.”
Trump, in one of his first acts as commander-in-chief, signed an executive order last year that banned travel from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen for national security reasons. The policy, which many opponents perceived as thinly veiled religious bias, set off a national backlash and widespread protests.
After two lower courts decided that the policy was both unconstitutional and [unlikely to protect the country](https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/09/politics/travel-ban-9th-circuit-ruling-full-text/index.html) from terrorism, the administration drew up a version that excluded Iraq and Sudan, added Chad, Venezuela, and North Korea, and contained waivers for green card holders or students. It didn't single out any religion in the text.
A federal judge in Hawaii halted the implementation of that modified policy nationwide in October, and the Supreme Court ruling is related to that ruling.
In December, the Supreme Court allowed the current version of the ban, weakened from its controversial initial form, to take effect while the case worked its way through the legal system.
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/scotus-upholds-trumps-travel-ban-2)
The school shooting in Texas that left 19 children and 2 teachers dead has reignited the debate over gun control.
The tragedy in Uvalde is the deadliest school shooting in nearly a decade and marks the latest in a string of mass shootings in the country. Jared Moskowitz, Broward County Commissioner and candidate for Congress in FL-23, joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss why gun control measures are stalled in the Senate, and where legislation can move forward from here.
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Texas authorities say the gunman who massacred 21 people at an elementary school was in the building for over an hour before he was killed by law enforcement officers.
Join Cheddar News as we break down the top headlines for Thursday, May 26 including updates on the Texas school shooting, President Joe Biden's executive order on police reform, and a recount in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary.
Representative Morgan Griffith of Virginia rebuked words from the FDA commissioner that could have been construed as blaming parents for stockpiling baby formula exacerbating the shortage.
Cheddar News reporter Megan Pratz brings the latest from the scene of yesterday's horrific school shooting at a Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Now the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history with 19 children and two adults killed, Pratz goes into comments by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, details about the deceased shooter, and reactions from members of the community.
The Robb Elementary School mass shooting killing 19 children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas pm Tuesday was the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, and came just 10 days after the grocery store shooting in Buffalo, New York. Nelson Vergara, the founder and CEO of 360 Protective Solutions, joined Cheddar’s Opening Bell to discuss. "Right now what law enforcement is concentrating on is trying to trace his steps as to what motivated the gunman to act the way he did. What it boils down to just trying to figure out what led to his motivation to do such a horrific act.”
An recently conducted AP-NORC poll found that majorities of the Black and Hispanic populations in the U.S. still find themselves either somewhat worried or extremely worried over the pandemic, while more than half of white Americans responded with either being not too worried or not worried at all. Dr. Chris Pernell, the chief strategic integration and health equity officer at University Hospital, joined Cheddar News to talk about how perceptions of COVID-19 differ between groups of Americans. "We’re still seeing people get infected, and because of the toll of the disproportionate impact, we have concerns among the Black and brown community about whether or not they have an increased risk of exposure because of where they work, because of the use of public transportation, because they live in homes that they may not be able to safely quarantine and or isolate in, and because they have at baseline chronic health conditions that may make coronavirus more severe in those persons," she said.
Judith Enck, a former regional administrator for the EPA and the president of Beyond Plastics, joined Cheddar News to talk about the role of plastics in the climate crisis and California's investigation of ExxonMobil and other oil companies for misleading the public on the ability to recycle plastics. "The reason why petrochemical companies like Exxon have gotten away with selling more and more plastic is that they've lied to the public and told us don't worry about all those negative upstream impacts and downstream impacts of plastics. Just be sure to recycle it. Well, guess what? Plastics largely are not recycled," Enck said.
