Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

ZOA Calls On Supreme Court To Uphold Trump Travel Ban

NEW YORK (JTA) — The Zionist Organization of America has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of President Donald Trump’s most recent ban on travel from a number of predominately Muslim countries.

The group, which has been an outspoken supporter of Trump’s policies, in its brief said the action did not amount to a “Muslim Ban” or violate the Constitution. On Wednesday, ZOA released a statement announcing its Feb. 28 filing of the brief.

ZOA cited terror attacks by immigrants in Boston, San Bernardino, Orlando and Manhattan, as well as Europe, in its defense of the executive order.

“The Proclamation’s vital purpose exemplifies our most fundamental, overriding value of protecting American lives,” the group’s president, Morton Klein, said in the statement.

The executive order announced in September prohibits travel from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, as well as from Chad and North Korea, and includes some Venezuelan government officials and their families. The ban went into effect in December, even as the appeals moved forward.

It was the Trump administration’s third attempt to prevent the entry into the United States of travelers from those countries. U.S. courts struck down the earlier bids by Trump to impose a ban on travel from a number of Muslim-majority countries, in part because Trump himself signaled that the ban was meant to target Muslims.

On Friday, at least six Jewish civil rights groups signed onto a joint amicus brief, spearheaded by the Anti-Defamation League, urging the Supreme Court to block the executive order. The American Jewish Committee also filed a brief opposing the ban.

In February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Virginia declared Trump’s travel ban unconstitutional. The decision came a month after the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from a similar decision from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Attorneys general for 16 states and Washington, D.C., also filed an amicus brief Friday with the Supreme Court against the travel ban.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the ban at the end of April.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version