US Supreme Court upholds Trump travel ban

Trump's travel ban covers countries like Syria, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Somalia. It gives him the authority to ban travellers from these countries if he deems it is necessary to protect the country.

The Supreme Court ruling, by a 5-4 Conservative-driven majority, came after lower courts had struck down each of the three versions of the president's travel ban.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the presidential proclamation leading to the ban "is squarely within the scope of presidential authority," while rejecting arguments it was based on the predominant religion of most of the affected countries.

Trump's travel ban covered Syria, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Chad, Somalia — all Muslim-majority countries. Chad was subsequently removed from the list. In addition, the ban also covered North Korea and Venezuela.

"The Proclamation is expressly premised on legitimate purposes: preventing entry of nationals who cannot be adequately vetted and inducing other nations to improve their practices. The text says nothing about religion," Roberts wrote.

The four liberal justices offered a strong rebuttal, recalling Trump's call for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" and saying that objective "masquerades behind a facade of national-security concerns."

"This repackaging does little to cleanse Presidential Proclamation No. 9645 of the appearance of discrimination that the President's words have created. Based on the evidence in the record, a reasonable observer would conclude that the Proclamation was motivated by anti-Muslim animus," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote.

The White House released a statement from the President calling the ruling a "tremendous victory for the American people and the constitution."

"In this era of worldwide terrorism and extremist movements bent on harming innocent civilians, we must properly vet those coming into our country. This ruling is also a moment of profound vindication following months of hysterical commentary from the media and Democratic politicians who refuse to do what it takes to secure our border and our country," the statement said.