Three years later, Trump travel ban heads back to court

RICHMOND, Va. — After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from several predominantly Muslim countries in 2018, the ruling appeared to shut down legal challenges that claimed the policy was rooted in anti-Muslim bias. The court is being asked to decide whether a federal judge in Maryland made a mistake when he refused to dismiss constitutional claims made in a lawsuit filed by the International Refugee Assistance Project despite a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Hawaii case that found the travel ban “a legitimate grounding in national security concerns.” The Justice Department argues the high court’s ruling effectively puts an end to the legal challenges. The court rejected claims that the policy was rooted in anti-Muslim bias based in large part on Trump’s own tweets and public statements, including his call during the presidential campaign for “a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Trump has said the ban is aimed at making the U.S. safer from potentially hostile foreigners. In rejecting the government’s motion to dismiss the lawsuits, Chuang found that the plaintiffs “have provided detailed allegations for why the is not rationally related to its stated national security interests and is instead grounded in the illegitimate and unconstitutional purpose of disadvantaging Muslims.” Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said that while the Muslim groups can legitimately argue that the Supreme Court did not require outright dismissal of their legal challenges, the high court’s ruling did put a significant crimp in their arguments.