A large crowd rallies in January 2017 against President Donald Trump's order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Call it a case that has everything: religion, immigration, national security, separation of powers, nationwide injunctions and even the president's tweets. All of this comes together in Trump v. Hawaii, the final argument of the U.S. Supreme Court term.

The justices on Wednesday morning will examine the constitutionality and legality of President Donald Trump's third iteration of the so-called travel ban, which blocks the entry of foreign nationals from six predominantly Muslim countries.

The Sept. 27 ban originally applied to eight countries: Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad, North Korea and Venezuela. Chad was recently removed from the list and replaced by Sudan. The challengers have not appealed the ban's application to North Korea and Venezuela.

Here are four things to watch at Wednesday's oral arguments:

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Trump's said a lot about the ban. How much will his words matter?

What will the justices say about Trump's statements and tweets on the travel ban? The challengers, represented in the arguments by Hogan Lovells partner Neal Katyal, claim a “litany of statements” by Trump and his administration from the presidential campaign to weeks after the ban was issued demonstrate the “unconstitutional purpose of excluding Muslims from the United States” because of their religion. They note as well Trump's retweets of three anti-Muslim videos.

Defending the ban, U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco counters that relying on such statements “represents precisely the sort of 'psychoanalysis of' a government official's 'heart of hearts' that the justices have rejected.”

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What most interests Roberts and Kennedy?

During his tenure on the court, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. has taken a special interest in structural issues in the Constitution: which branch has the power to do what. The first issue confronting the court is whether the judiciary has the authority to even review the travel ban. That is a core separation-of-powers issue tailor-made for the chief. And so too is a second key question: did Trump exceed his authority under the Constitution and immigration law by issuing the travel ban?

Justice Anthony Kennedy may well home in on a third issue: Does the travel ban violate the First Amendment's establishment clause? Kennedy has written extensively on the religion clauses and his concern with individual dignity may figure into his questions during the arguments.

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Will the ghost of the Supreme Court's Korematsu decision appear?

In a powerful amicus brief on behalf of the children of Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui, Pratik Shah, a partner in Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, reminds the justices of the history of the Japanese-American internments during World War II and sees in the government's travel ban arguments a “disturbing similarity” to the arguments the justices accepted in the internment cases.

“By refusing to scrutinize the government's claim that its abhorrent treatment of Japanese Americans was justified by military necessity, the court enabled the government to cover its racially discriminatory policies in the cloak of national security,” Shah wrote.

The amicus brief urges the justices to heed the lessons of history and to give “meaningful judicial scrutiny” to Trump's decision to issue the travel ban. It also calls on the court to acknowledge “the historic wrong” in the Korematsu, Hirabayashi and Yasui cases and to “repudiate” the court's refusal to scrutinize the government's claim of necessity.

Katyal, serving in 2011 as the acting U.S. solicitor general, addressed the “mistakes” the government made in defending Japanese-American internment at the Supreme Court. A statement posted on the Justice Department's website was presented as a “confession of error.”

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The power of the amicus: Will one brief stand out?

The 72 amicus briefs filed in the case are not a record number in Supreme Court cases, but they are notable. More than half support the challengers. Some of the justices in recent arguments have mentioned particular amicus briefs as raising important arguments.

In McDonnell v. United States, Roberts cited an amicus brief by former White House counsel to five presidents. And an amicus brief by military officers played an important role in Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's affirmative action decision in Grutter v. Bollinger.

There obviously is a wealth from which to choose on both sides. For example, the government argues that national security is the principal purpose of the travel ban. Yale Law School's Harold Koh attacks that claim in an amicus brief by a bipartisan group of 52 former government national security and intelligence officials. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty takes a different position on the religious discrimination issue, arguing that the religious targeting claim should be evaluated under the free exercise clause, not the establishment clause.

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