United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday said they will move the Supreme Court against the Hawaii federal court’s order that limits the scope of President Donald Trump’s travel ban on six Muslim-majority countries.
Federal Judge Derrick Watson on Thursday had ruled that grandparents and other relatives cannot be barred from entering the US under the temporary travel ban. The Justice Department will ask the top court to block the judge’s ruling, which Sessions said undermined national security.
“By this decision, the district court has improperly substituted its policy preferences for the national security judgments of the executive branch in a time of grave threats,” he said in a statement.
Although the Supreme Court is not currently in session, the administration can file a plea with Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is responsible for emergency requests from western states. The department may also approach a bench of nine justices, according to Reuters.
The US Supreme Court had let the ban on travellers from the six countries to be enforced with limited scope, saying it could not apply to anyone with a credible “bona fide relationship” with a US person. The Trump administration had then modified its order to allow spouses, parents, children, fiancés and siblings of people in the US to enter the country.
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