The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday night to allow the latest version of its controversial travel ban to go fully into effect, pending appeal.
The third version of the travel ban places varying levels of restrictions on foreign nationals from eight countries: Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Somalia and Yemen. A district court in Hawaii blocked this iteration of the travel ban from going into effect last month.
But a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially lifted that order on November 13, allowing the ban to go into effect except for foreign nationals who have "bona fide" relationships with people or entities in the United States. The language of that order was adopted from a Supreme Court order pertaining to an earlier version of the ban.
In the latest filing, Solicitor General Noel Francisco sought to differentiate the President's most recent ban from prior iterations.
"It is the product of a review process undertaken by multiple Cabinet officers and government officials," Francisco wrote, "and it is based on express findings of inadequacies in the information sharing practices, identity-management protocols, and risk factors of certain countries."
The 9th Circuit panel is set to hear oral arguments on the case on December 6.
