Locals react to Supreme Court decision on travel ban

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Trump’s travel ban on mostly Muslim countries, saying the president has the power to regulate immigration.

Back here in Lincoln, the Nebraska Republican Party says they’re not surprised by the decision and that making sure Americans are safe is within the president’s authority.

"The travel ban itself is designed to be temporary, to make sure to give the department of homeland security and our other federal agencies time to vet each and every one of these countries to make sure that we have the proper process in to accept the refugee applications," says Executive Director Kenny Zoeller.

Zoeller says that’s necessary to make sure no refugee applicants have been infiltrated by ISIS or al–Qaeda.

The Nebraska ACLU says they’re disappointed in the decision.

Five of the seven countries on the list are majority Muslim and the ACLU says the ban is religious discrimination.

"President Trump, his team and his advisers from the campaign, through the time that they penned the Muslim ban, were crystal clear in their intentions: to ban Muslims, to target a religion," says Executive Director Danielle Conrad.

Zoeller disagrees, saying a temporary ban doesn’t harm the refugee program as much as what could happen.

"If you take a look at what would hurt our refugee program the most, it would be if ISIS our another terrorist group was able to infiltrate it and then cause an attack on American soil," he says.

The ACLU, however, questions just how temporary the ban will be.

"There are definitely a lot of questions today…moving forward about how this policy will be implemented," Conrad says.

Along with the five majority Muslim countries, the ban also includes North Korea and Venezuela.  President Trump says he doesn’t intend to include any other countries in the ban.