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Donald Trump
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday largely upheld a nationwide block on President Donald Trump's travel ban.It's expected that the Trump administration will appeal the 4th Circuit's ruling to the Supreme Court.
The ban was Trump's second stab at an executive order halting travel from certain majority-Muslim countries.
In his opinion, the 4th Circuit's chief judge, Roger Gregory, wrote that although the president has been granted broad power by Congress to deny entry to foreign visitors, "that power is not absolute."
"It cannot go unchecked when, as here, the President wields it through an executive edict that stands to cause irreparable harm to individuals across this nation," Gregory wrote.
The ruling comes after a federal judge in Maryland issued an injunction in March, arguing in his ruling that Trump's executive order was a fulfillment of Trump's campaign pledge to ban Muslims from entering the country.
Lawyers for the Trump administration had argued that comments Trump made while he was campaigning should not be considered when weighing his executive order.
"This is not a Muslim ban. Its text doesn't have anything to do with religion. It's operation doesn't have anything to do with religion," acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall told the court earlier this month.