WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on an appeals court ruling against the Trump administration’s travel ban (all times local):
5:40 p.m.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions says the Justice Department will ask the Supreme Court to review an appeals court ruling that blocked President Donald Trump’s travel ban.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled 10-3 against the travel ban. The decision bars the administration from suspending new visas for visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Sessions says the Justice Department “strongly disagrees” and will continue to vigorously defend Trump’s order. He says the court’s ruling blocks Trump’s “efforts to strengthen this country’s national security.”
Sessions says Trump is not required to admit people from “countries that sponsor or shelter terrorism until he determines that they can be properly vetted” and don’t pose a security threat.
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4:50 p.m.
The White House says it remains confident that President Donald Trump’s travel ban is lawful and ultimately will be upheld by the courts.
Spokesman Michael Short says the administration needs “every available tool at our disposal” to keep terrorists from entering the United States and committing violence.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled 10-3 against the travel ban. The decision bars the administration from suspending new visas for visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Short quotes one of the dissenters, Judge Dennis W. Shedd, in saying that the “real losers” are the millions of individual Americans whose security is threatened daily by those who seek to harm the U.S.
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4:25 p.m.
The three dissenting judges who supported Donald Trump’s travel ban say the court should not have looked to statements made by Trump during the presidential campaign.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 10-3 Thursday against Trump’s travel ban.
Calling the executive order a “modest action,” Judge Paul Niemeyer wrote that Supreme Court precedent required the court to consider the executive order without looking at Trump’s statements. He says looking at the order on its face, “it is entirely without constitutional fault.”
Niemeyer was joined by judges Dennis W. Shedd and G. Steven Agee. All three judges were appointed to the 4th Circuit by Republican presidents.
Niemeyer wrote that the order was issued in direct response to the risk of terrorism from six majority-Muslim countries. He says the ban was justified to ensure existing screening procedures were adequate.
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3:10 p.m.
A federal appeals court ruling says President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban vaguely invoked national security interests but is rooted in religious intolerance.
The chief judge of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Roger L. Gregory, wrote in a ruling against the ban that it “speaks with vague words of national security.” However, Gregory wrote, the ban “in context drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination.”
The appeals court decision blocks the administration from suspending new visas for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Omar Jadwat is the director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and argued the case before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He hailed the 4th Circuit ruling and says the ban is unconstitutional.
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2:55 p.m.
The American Civil Liberties Union is hailing a federal appeals court’s ruling against President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban targeting six Muslim-majority countries.
Omar Jadwat is the director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and argued the case before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He said Thursday that the ban is unconstitutional. Jadwat says “the Constitution’s prohibition on actions disfavoring or condemning any religion is a fundamental protection for all of us.”
The appeals court decision blocks the administration from suspending new visas for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The chief judge of the circuit, Roger L. Gregory, wrote in the ruling that the administration’s national security interest appear to be a secondary justification “for an executive action rooted in religious animus and intended to bar Muslims from this country.”
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2:15 p.m.
A federal appeals court has dealt another blow to President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban targeting six Muslim-majority countries.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling that blocked the travel ban. It’s the first appeals court to rule on the revised travel ban. Trump rewrote the ban after several legal defeats. His administration will likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The appeals court decision blocks the administration from suspending new visas for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
A federal judge in Hawaii has also halted that provision and the freeze on the U.S. refugee program. Trump’s administration is fighting that decision in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
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