A federal appeals court handed the Trump administration a partial victory Monday, granting its emergency request to allow parts of its latest travel ban to go into effect while the appeal is pending.
A three-judge panel — all appointed by former President Bill Clinton — on the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals decided Monday to keep the lower court’s order in place, freezing the ban, for foreign nationals who have a “close familial relationship” with a person in the United States, but granted the Trump administration’s request to allow it to go into effect for everyone else.
The 9th Circuit panel is set to hear oral arguments on the case on December 6.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January banning foreign nationals from specific Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the United States, but the restrictions have been tied up in the legal system and have since been revised multiple times.
In October, a federal judge in Hawaii blocked the third iteration of the travel ban one day before it was scheduled to take effect.
At the time, Judge Derrick Watson said it “plainly discriminates based on nationality.”
The ban targeted foreign nationals from eight countries — Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Somalia and Yemen — with varying levels of restrictions.
The second version of the travel ban, issued in March, had barred residents of six Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.