White House Changes Start Date For Travel Order To Keep Legal Case Alive

U.S. President Donald Trump signed his executive order on travel in March.

The White House on June 14 changed the starting date for its stalled executive order temporarily banning visitors from six predominantly Muslim countries in a bid to keep its legal battle for the ban alive.

The move was to prevent the legal case over the ban pending before the U.S. Supreme Court from becoming moot on grounds that the 90-day ban had expired.

If the case was moot, the court's nine justices would have no reason to rule on it and lower court rulings against the ban would remain in place.

Challengers to the ban, who contend the order is intended to discriminate against Muslims, argued that the ban should have been allowed to expire on schedule on June 14.

To prevent that from happening, the White House issued a memo saying the start date for the parts of the order that have been suspended by the courts will be set when the court injunctions are lifted.

The White House said the ban will be implemented 72 hours after court injunctions against it are lifted or stayed.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters