(CN) - The Ninth Circuit on Monday became the second federal appeals court to uphold a stay of President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban, even as he presses the Supreme Court to reinstate it.
Monday’s decision follows a May 25 ruling by the Fourth Circuit that concluded Trump intended to discriminate against Muslims from the six countries he targeted in his executive order.
The administration on June 1 asked the U.S. Supreme Court to let the ban take effect while the justices decide whether to review the Fourth Circuit ruling.
The three-judge Ninth Circuit panel ruled that Trump exceeded the scope of his authority in issuing the revised travel ban and largely upheld a ruling in Hawaii federal court that prevented the implementation of a ban on all travelers from six Muslim-majority countries.
“Immigration, even for the President, is not a one-person show,” the 86-page opinion states. “The President must make a sufficient finding that the entry of these classes of people would be ‘detrimental to the interests of the United States.’”
Specifically, the panel focused on areas where the executive order clashed with established immigration law, saying the apparent legal contradictions put Trump in a “weakened” position legally.
“If there were such consensus between Congress and the President, then we would view Presidential power at its maximum, and not in the weakened state based on its conflict with statutory law,” the panel’s per curiam opinion states.
Furthermore, unlike previous rulings that heavily focused on Trump’s campaign statements about shutting down Muslim immigration, Monday’s ruling focused on the lack of actual justifications for the travel ban.
“The order makes no finding that nationality alone renders entry of this broad class of individuals a heightened security risk to the United States,” the panel wrote.
Trump’s Justice Department has consistently argued that the president has broad discretion when it comes to the nexus between immigration and national security, and that both orders were well within established presidential purview.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions resurrected that argument outside of the courtroom Monday, issuing a statement saying President Trump was well within the scope of his authority and vowing to appeal the Ninth Circuit decision to the Supreme Court.
“President Trump knows that the country he has been elected to lead is threatened daily by terrorists who believe in a radical ideology, and that there are active plots to infiltrate the U.S. immigration system -- just as occurred prior to 9/11,” Sessions said. “The President is committed to protecting the American people and our national security, and we are proud to support his mission to put America first by defending his right to keep us safe.”
The Ninth Circuit panel rejected that line of reasoning in its opinion.
“National security is not a ‘talismanic incantation’ that, once invoked, can support any and all exercise of executive power,” the ruling states.
The ruling marks the second defeat for the Trump administration in the Ninth Circuit, with both decisions focusing on the presence of unconstitutional religious discrimination against Muslims embedded in each executive order. The first one was issued a week after Trump assumed office and a second, revised travel ban came in early March.