SUPREME COURT/TRAVEL BAN/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A 15-month legal battle over President Trump’s efforts to impose a ban on travel to the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries reached a final stage on Wednesday [4-25-18] at the Supreme Court, with its five-member conservative majority signaling it was ready to approve a revised version of the president’s plan. The justices appeared ready to discount Mr. Trump’s campaign promises to impose what he repeatedly described as a ‘Muslim ban,’ while giving him the benefit of the doubt traditionally afforded to presidents. Some expressed worry about second-guessing executive branch determinations about who should be allowed to enter the United States. Immigrant rights groups had hoped that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. or Justice Anthony M. Kennedy would join the court’s four-member liberal wing to oppose the ban as unconstitutionally discriminatory against Muslims. But their questioning was almost uniformly hostile to the ban’s opponents.”
-Adam Liptak and Michael D. Shear, “Key Justices Seem Skeptical of Challenge to Trump’s Travel Ban,” The New York Times online, April 26, 2018