Trump v. Hawaii Case Brief Summary | Law Case Explained

Trump v. Hawaii | 138 S. Ct. 2392 (2018)

Can a presidential candidate’s campaign speeches and a president’s unofficial comments support challenges to an exercise of presidential power? The United States Supreme Court considered this question in Trump versus Hawaii.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump made statements widely interpreted as revealing a strong animus against Muslims. He pledged that, if elected, he would ban Muslims from entering the United States. One week after taking office, President Trump’s first executive order banned persons from seven primarily Muslim nations from entering the United States. A federal district court preliminarily enjoined the order’s enforcement, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. The president then revoked the first order and issued a second, substantially similar, executive order. Two different district courts enjoined enforcement of the second travel ban, and two circuit courts again affirmed. The Supreme Court had granted cert, but the second order expired before any further proceedings occurred.

The president had directed the Department of Homeland Security to review the adequacy of all nations’ information provided about their residents seeking to enter the United States. Upon completion of this global review, the president issued a Proclamation seeking to improve vetting procedures and restricting entry of persons from seven nations whose information-sharing systems were deemed inadequate.

The State of Hawaii sued, claiming that the Proclamation was based on religious animus and thus violated federal immigration law and the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The district court granted a nationwide preliminary injunction against the Proclamation’s enforcement. The Ninth Circuit partially affirmed the injunction, and the Supreme Court granted cert.




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