Docket 17-965
Trump v. Hawaii
DecidedJun 26, 2018
5-4decision
Source: CourtListener.
Supreme Court upholds President's travel ban restricting entry from several mostly Muslim countries
Impact8/10
What it does
The ruling upholds Presidential Proclamation 9645, which restricted entry into the United States of nationals from several countries (most with Muslim-majority populations) based on inadequate information-sharing and security vetting concerns. It holds that federal immigration law broadly empowers the President to suspend entry of foreign nationals, and that the policy survives constitutional review because it can reasonably be understood as resting on national-security justifications rather than religious discrimination.
Who benefits
The executive branch and future presidents gain broad, largely unreviewable authority to restrict entry of foreign nationals by nationality based on national-security findings.
Who is affected
Foreign nationals from the designated countries (Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and Somalia) seeking visas, and U.S. citizens or residents with relatives in those countries who are separated from them by the entry restrictions.
Practical impact
The ruling allows the entry restrictions to remain in effect, meaning nationals of the designated countries continue to face significant barriers to obtaining U.S. visas, subject only to a discretionary waiver process. It also establishes that courts will apply a highly deferential rational basis standard, rather than closer scrutiny, when reviewing presidential immigration and national-security actions challenged on constitutional grounds, and it formally disavows Korematsu v. United States as a matter of law.
Majority reasoning
The majority, led by Chief Justice Roberts, held that 8 U.S.C. §1182(f) gives the President broad discretion to suspend entry of any class of aliens whenever he finds their entry detrimental to U.S. interests, and that the President met this low bar through an extensive interagency review process and a detailed 12-page proclamation. The Court found no conflict between the proclamation and the INA's existing vetting scheme or the Visa Waiver Program, since neither addressed the specific problem of unreliable information from high-risk countries. On the constitutional claim, the Court assumed it could look behind the proclamation's neutral text to apply rational basis review, asking only whether the policy was plausibly related to a legitimate government objective; it concluded that the proclamation's exemptions, waiver program, and periodic country-by-country review process reflected a genuine security rationale independent of any religious hostility. The majority also addressed dissenting arguments directly, stating that a national-security context justifies rational basis rather than heightened review, and that Korematsu was "gravely wrong the day it was decided" and has no place in law, distinguishing it as addressing forced relocation of citizens rather than a facially neutral entry policy.
Dissent reasoning
Justice Breyer, joined by Justice Kagan, argued that the case should be sent back to the lower courts to determine whether the government was actually applying the proclamation's waiver and exemption system as written, since evidence suggested waivers were rarely granted and may have functioned as "window dressing" rather than genuine case-by-case review, which would undercut the national-security justification. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Ginsburg, argued that a reasonable observer, considering the President's campaign statements calling for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims," subsequent statements linking the proclamation to that pledge, and the failure to ever disavow these statements, would conclude the proclamation was motivated by anti-Muslim animus rather than genuine security concerns. She contended the proclamation failed even rational basis review because existing immigration law already addressed the vetting concerns the government cited, and compared the majority's deference to national security claims to the reasoning in Korematsu v. United States, arguing the Court was replacing one gravely wrong decision with another.
Constitutional question
Did the President have statutory authority under immigration law to issue the entry-restriction proclamation, and does the proclamation violate the First Amendment's ban on government establishment of religion by targeting Muslims?
Precedent changed
The Court formally repudiated Korematsu v. United States (1944) as a legal matter, declaring it "gravely wrong the day it was decided" and stating it has no place in law, though this was framed as a statement rather than as overruling a holding directly at issue in this case.