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Cotton Releases Statement on Supreme Court Travel Ban Ruling

Sen. Tom Cotton
Sen. Tom Cotton / Getty Images
June 26, 2018

Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) released a statement Tuesday in response to the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling on President Donald Trump's travel ban.

"Congress has long delegated to the president the authority to regulate the entry of people into the United States, particularly from war-torn countries or well-known state sponsors of terrorism," the statement reads. "The Court has rightly upheld this common-sense, longstanding practice, which I hope will end once and for all the tortured reasoning of liberal judges who make up new legal doctrines because they personally disapprove of the president."

The Supreme Court ruled in favor on Trump's travel ban on Tuesday. Reuters reported the ruling marked the end of a long legal fight surrounding Trump's executive order.

The 5-4 ruling, with the court's five conservatives in the majority, ends for now a fierce fight in the courts over whether the policy represented an unlawful Muslim ban. Trump can now claim vindication after lower courts had blocked his travel ban announced in September, as well as two prior versions, in legal challenges brought by the state of Hawaii and others.

The court held that the challengers had failed to show that the ban violates either U.S. immigration law or the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment prohibition on the government favoring one religion over another.

Cotton also released a statement on the Supreme Court's ruling regarding National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra.

"To force a pro-life clinic to advertise the very thing it opposes is an egregious violation of the First Amendment," Cotton's statement reads. "The state of California's discrimination against crisis pregnancy centers was deliberate and cruel, and the Court rightly upheld these centers' right to free speech. Arkansas's 41 crisis pregnancy centers perform a valuable service to mothers in need, and I will continue to work to protect them from discrimination."

The Supreme Court, in another 5-4 vote, blocked a California law that required crisis pregnancy centers to inform women about possible abortion procedures. The court ruled the state law violated the First Amendment.

Published under: Supreme Court , Tom Cotton