WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court dismissed on Tuesday an appeal in one of the cases challenging President Donald Trump's efforts to limit travel to the United States, calling an earlier version of the ban moot because it has expired.
That travel ban has since been replaced with broader restrictions, and a second case remains before the justices. A new wave of litigation aimed at Trump's latest policies, announced last month, is already underway, and appeals in those cases may also reach the Supreme Court.
The case the court addressed Tuesday came from the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., which had ruled that the earlier travel ban, issued in March, violated the Constitution's protections against religious discrimination by singling out travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries.
"Because that provision of the order 'expired by its own terms' on September 24, 2017," the court said in a brief, unsigned order quoting an earlier decision, "the appeal no longer presents a 'live case or controversy.'" The justices vacated the appeals court's decision, meaning it cannot be used as precedent.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, saying that she would have simply dismissed the case and allowed the appeals court decision to remain on the books.
Still being considered -- at least for now -- is a case from the federal appeals court in San Francisco, which concerned both the travel ban against the six countries and a suspension of the nation's refugee program. The refugee suspension is due to expire this month.
Soon after Trump took office, he issued his first travel ban. Several federal judges blocked aspects of the order, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed one of those injunctions.
Rather than appeal that loss to the Supreme Court, the administration issued a revised executive order in March.
A Section on 10/11/2017