High court OKs Trump's travel ban

WASHINGTON -- A sharply divided Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump's ban on travel from several mostly Muslim countries Tuesday, the conservative majority taking his side in a major ruling supporting his presidential power. A dissenting liberal justice said the court was making a historic mistake by refusing to recognize the ban discriminates against Muslims.

The 5-4 decision was a big victory for Trump in the court's first substantive ruling on one of his administration's policies. It also was the latest demonstration of a newly invigorated conservative majority and a bitter defeat for the court's liberals.

The ruling came on an issue that has been central for Trump, from his campaign outbursts against "radical Islamic terrorism" through his presidency. He tweeted a quick reaction -- "Wow!"

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion for the five conservative justices, including Trump nominee Neil Gorsuch, who got his seat only after Republicans blocked President Barack Obama's nominee for the last 10 months of Obama's term.

Roberts wrote the travel ban was well within U.S. presidents' considerable authority over immigration and responsibility for keeping the nation safe. He rejected the challengers' claim of anti-Muslim bias resting in large part on Trump's own tweets and statements over the past three years.

But Roberts was careful not to endorse either Trump's statements about immigration in general or Muslims in particular, including his campaign call for "a complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."

"We express no view on the soundness of the policy," Roberts wrote.

The travel ban has been fully in place since December, when the justices put the brakes on lower court rulings ruling the policy out of bounds and blocked part of it from being enforced. It applies even to people with close relatives in the United States and other strong connections to the country.

In a dissent she summarized aloud in court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, "History will not look kindly on the court's misguided decision today, nor should it." Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan also dissented.

Sotomayor wrote "a reasonable observer would conclude that the Proclamation was motivated by anti-Muslim animus." She said the majority ruled by "ignoring the facts, misconstruing our legal precedent and turning a blind eye to the pain and suffering the Proclamation inflicts upon countless families and individuals, many of whom are United States citizens."

She likened the case to the discredited Korematsu V. U.S. decision upholding the detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Roberts responded in his opinion "Korematsu has nothing to do with this case" and "was gravely wrong the day it was decided."

The travel ban was among the court's biggest cases this term and the latest in a string of 5-4 decisions in which the conservative side of the court, bolstered by the addition of Gorsuch last year, prevailed. He was chosen by Trump after Republicans in the Senate refused to grant a hearing to federal appeals Judge Merrick Garland who was nominated by Obama in March 2016.

Soon after the ruling, the campaign of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who orchestrated the strategy to keep the high court seat away from Obama, tweeted a photo of McConnell and Gorsuch.

The Trump policy applies to travelers from five countries with overwhelmingly Muslim populations -- Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. It also affects two non-Muslim countries, blocking travelers from North Korea and some Venezuelan government officials and their families. A sixth majority Muslim country, Chad, was removed from the list in April after improving "its identity-management and information sharing practices," Trump said in a proclamation.

The administration had pointed to the Chad decision to show the restrictions were premised only on national security concerns.