The high court’s move appeared to be an attempt by the justices to extricate themselves from pending litigation over the travel ban order that Trump issued in March, which was effectively superseded by a new directive the president signed on Sept. 24.
However, any effort by the court to clear the decks of the travel ban issue is likely to be short-lived. At least four lawsuits have been filed or are being retooled to challenge the new Trump proclamation, which imposed a varied set of travel restrictions on nationals of eight countries, including five of those on the original list.
One judge has already scheduled a hearing for Monday on a request to block Trump’s new order before it kicks in next week.
The Supreme Court’s action Tuesday night removed from its docket a case from Maryland in which refugee resettlement groups and several individuals argued that Trump’s order in March exceeded his legal authority and was prompted by unconstitutional bias against Muslims.
The high court’s new order vacated a caustic ruling that the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued in May in which the court’s chief judge declared that Trump’s ban “drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination.”
