The Supreme Court dropped one of the cases challenging President Trump’s travel ban on Tuesday.
The high court said Tuesday that Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project is moot, as the 90-day ban on foreign nationals entering the U.S. expired and has since been replaced by different guidance.
“Following our established practice in such cases, the judgment is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit with instructions to dismiss as moot the challenge to [the ban],” said the Supreme Court in an unsigned summary disposition.
BREAKING: #SCOTUS says IRAP travel ban case is no longer live, directs 4th Circuit to dismiss challenge as moot now that 90-day ban passed. pic.twitter.com/hFv2167dbu
— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) October 10, 2017
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the only justice to dissent from the decision and would have dismissed the justices’ decision to take the case as “improvidently granted” and not vacated lower court judgments against Trump’s ban.
The case was one of two related to the travel ban that the Supreme Court was considering.
The order made clear that it expressed “no view on the merits” of the litigation about the ban, which is already being contested in lower courts.
The justices also took no action in Hawaii’s case challenging Trump’s ban, which was previously consolidated with the International Refugee Assistance Project case. The cases were removed from the high court’s argument calendar pending its review of the controversy’s mootness.
Hawaii’s case also challenged a provision of Trump’s previous executive order implementing a refugee ban that does not expire until later this month, which indicates the justices could wait to formally moot that case until later this month.
Guidance from Trump’s latest proclamation aimed at implementing the ban is slated to go into effect on Oct. 18.
