Immigration policy during the Trump administration jumped back into the news today, as the Supreme Court temporarily allowed the federal government to throttle back the nation’s refugee program, but agreed with a Hawaii court that grandparents be included among those allowed to travel to the United States to visit family.

Both decisions were made pending an appeal of lower court rulings killing the travel bans that exclude many travelers from six mostly Muslim countries, as well as many refugees.

The justices rejected the administration’s request that it clarify their decision last month that temporarily reinstated the ban, but allowed people with “a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States” to enter the country. The court said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, should decide that.

Only last week, a federal court in Honolulu ruled the administration’s narrow interpretation of who had a credible claim should include grandparents.

“Common sense, for instance, dictates that close family members be defined to include grandparents,” wrote Judge Derrick K. Watson. “Indeed, grandparents are the epitome of close family members. The government’s definition excludes them. That simply cannot be.”

Challenges to Mr. Trump’s travel bans have, in the words of The New York Times, “been ricocheting around the federal courts for almost as long as he has been president.”

His first ban, issued in January, was blocked by the courts. The administration issued a revised executive order in March. Federal appeals courts ruled it violated the Constitution by discriminating based on religion.

The Supreme Court has scheduled appeals of those decisions for October.

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