Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy issued an order Monday temporarily staying a lower court's limitations on the Trump administration's travel ban.
Kennedy's order, a so-called "administrative stay," will likely be in place only for a short period of time, the New York Times reports. The whole of the Supreme Court is expected to issue a more thorough order in the next several days.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had, last week, placed substantial limits on the scope of the ban, blocking its implementation for refugees who have assurances from resettlement agencies or the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, as well as extended family members of refugees. Had Kennedy not acted, the Ninth Circuit's ruling would have been implemented Tuesday.
The Department of Justice earlier in the day petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the Ninth Circuit's ruling. Implementing the Ninth's ruling, Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall argued, would produce "precisely the type of uncertainty and confusion that the government has worked diligently to avoid" thus far.
Kennedy's order marks the third time that the court has intervened to in some way to affect the implementation of the travel ban. In June it temporarily reimplemented much of the ban, having previously been blocked by lower courts, with the proviso that the administration had to allow in travelers with ties to U.S.-based individuals or groups. And in July, it mostly upheld the ruling of a lower court in Hawaii, but stayed the implementation of one feature of it until it could formally visit the topic.
The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments on the various lawsuits over the travel ban in October.