Donald Trump’s latest travel ban faces fresh lawsuits

By S.M. | NEW YORK

AMERICANS’ reputation for litigiousness hasn’t always extended to lawsuits against the government. But since January, the country's lawyers have been busy suing Donald Trump for a string of unprecedented presidential moves: threatening sanctuary cities, banning transgender troops and blocking critics on Twitter. The highest profile dispute concerns Mr Trump’s three executive orders apparently designed to fulfill a campaign promise he made in December 2015 for a “total and complete shutdown on all Muslims entering the United States”.

The Supreme Court agreed last summer to review two lower-court rulings blocking the March 6th version of Mr Trump’s travel restrictions, but it scrapped the October hearing date after the administration replaced that order with a new one on September 24th. On October 10th, the justices took an additional step: they declared Trump v International Refugee Assistance Project, one of the lawsuits challenging the March order, moot (meaning, in this case, that it is no longer a live controversy). The court will likely dispose of the other case, Trump v Hawaii, later this month when the ban on refugees expires.