The Latest: ACLU against effort to allow Trump travel ban

WASHINGTON – The Latest on the Justice Department’s appeal to the Supreme Court to reinstate the Trump administration’s travel ban (all times local):

12:45 a.m.

The ACLU is decrying the Trump administration’s late-night request that the Supreme Court immediately reinstate its ban on travellers from six mostly Muslim countries.

The director of the group’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, Omar Jadwat, says there’s no reason to undo a lower court’s ruling that blocked the policy. He says that ruling “enforces a fundamental principle that protects us all from government condemnation of our religious beliefs.”

The ACLU and another organization, the National Immigration Law Center, sued over the travel ban. The law centre’s legal director, Karen Tumlin, says it will continue defending its clients from discrimination by the government.

The Justice Department says in court filings that lower courts blocking the ban made several mistakes, including relying on statements President Donald Trump made during the 2016 campaign.

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11:35 p.m.

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to reinstate its ban on travellers from six mostly Muslim countries.

The Justice Department filing to the high court late Thursday argues that the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, made several mistakes in ruling against the Trump travel policy. The government says the nation will be safer if the policy is put in place.

Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores says the ban is lawful.

Immigration officials would have 90 days to decide what changes are necessary before people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen may resume applying for visas.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the national security concerns an after-the-fact justification for a policy that was “intended to bar Muslims from this country.”