The US Supreme Court has been asked to remove legal blocks on a US travel ban on people from majority Muslim countries.
Attempts by US president Donald Trump to curtail travel from certain countries was ruled to be discriminatory by courts in Washington state and Minnesota and then in Maryland after a second executive order was issued.
A federal judge in Hawaii also decided the ban was discriminatory casting doubt on the government’s argument that the ban was a matter of national security.
Last month, a federal appeals court in Virginia refused to lift the temporary block saying the government’s national security argument was a “secondary justification for an executive order rooted in religious animus and intended to bar Muslims from this country”.
The revised executive order in March sought to bar people from Somalia, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Yemen from applying for new visas and temporarily blocked entry into the US of all refugees.
Now two emergency applications have been filed by the government with the Supreme Court’s nine justices in a bid to overturn those lower court rulings.
Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said: “We have asked the Supreme Court to hear this important case and are confident that President Trump’s executive order is well within his lawful authority to keep the nation safe and protect our communities from terrorism.
“The president is not required to admit people from countries that sponsor or shelter terrorism, until he determines that they can be properly vetted and do not pose a security risk to the United States.”