A rally at the Supreme Court against the Trump administration's effort to ban immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ ALM)

A federal appeals court has thrown out one of the remaining challenges to President Donald Trump's travel ban on several majority-Muslim countries, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's prior ruling upholding the policy.

District Judge Theodore Chuang of the District of Maryland last year refused to dismiss the constitutional claims in the lawsuit, as plaintiffs had presented "factual allegations sufficient to show that the proclamation [was] not rationally related to the legitimate national security and information-sharing justifications identified in the proclamation [but] … was motivated only by an illegitimate hostility to Muslims." He said the case could proceed to discovery on those claims, as the Supreme Court's holding in Hawaii v. Trump, which upheld the ban, was based on a record created at the preliminary injunction stage.

A three-judge panel on the Fourth Circuit on Monday reversed that finding, with Judge Paul Niemeyer writing in the opinion that the "district court misunderstood the import of the Supreme Court's decision in Hawaii and the legal principles it applied." Judges G. Steven Agee and Julius Richardson joined the opinion.

Covington & Burling attorneys argued for plaintiffs in the case that their claims the ban is based on anti-Muslim sentiments and not national security reasons could move forward because the Supreme Court acted on a limited record based largely on public statements made by Trump as a candidate, before discovery could happen. A number of other groups and firms, including the ACLU and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, also are behind the complaint.

But Niemeyer wrote the Hawaii opinion, in considering the anti-Muslim claims, "stated that the issue 'is not whether to denounce the statements' of the president and his advisers. 'It is instead the significance of those statements in reviewing a presidential directive, neutral on its face, addressing a matter within the core of executive responsibility.' And in answering that question, the court recognized that, under its longstanding precedent, the president's statements would not factor into the analysis to the extent that 'the executive gave a 'facially legitimate and bona fide' reason for its action.'"

Niemeyer also wrote, regardless of the Supreme Court's opinion, the panel would have ruled the policy "does indeed provide on its face legitimate and bona fide reasons for its entry restrictions," citing a "comprehensive, global review" to determine the countries impacted by the travel restrictions.

"Yet, despite the Supreme Court's clear and unambiguous conclusion about the justification for Proclamation 9645, the district court in this case concluded that the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged that the same proclamation reflected no legitimate purpose. In doing so, it erred as a matter of law," Monday's opinion reads. "Therefore, even to the extent that the plaintiffs' constitutional claims are subject to rational basis review, rather than the Mandel standard, the district court should have dismissed them for failing to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face."

Trump's original travel ban faced a number of immediate legal challenges in 2017. Previous versions of the ban, issued by executive order, were struck down by federal courts, including the Fourth Circuit. Trump later issued a revised proclamation for the travel restrictions, and that version was upheld by the Supreme Court.

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