The executive order President Trump signed shortly after entering office, the one that forbade travel to the United States by non-resident aliens from six failed states and one state sponsor of terror, expired today. This case was interesting because for the first time in the history of the republic actual judges decided that, no matter the factual record in the development of the order, the fact that Donald Trump was president was sufficient cause to rule that the president could not exercise the authority delegated to him by Congress. Another court went so far as to find that the Supreme Court was wrong because they did not give sufficient weight to the fact that Trump was president and, therefore, clearly did not understand the law.

A lot of people were hoping this would go away and possibly moot the case now on the Supreme Court’s calendar for next month. They’d like it to be mooted because the court seems poised to repudiate the arguments made against it.

A couple of days ago, the New York Times ran a story saying that the administration was considering extending the travel ban (I’m using travel ban as shorthand because the executive order is clearly not that).

President Trump is replacing his ban on travelers from six majority-Muslim countries with severe restrictions on visitors from nations he has determined do too little to protect against terrorists and criminals coming into the United States, officials said on Friday.

The new travel restrictions could include indefinite bans on entry until vetting procedures and security cooperation improves, officials said. They will go into effect as soon as Sunday, after the conclusion of a 90-day policy review undertaken as part of the administration’s original travel ban.

Officials said Mr. Trump will soon announce the list of countries subject to the travel restrictions. They declined to say whether the list would include all six countries from which travel was temporarily banned by a revised executive order in March: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The new ban is here:

The travel order continues restrictions on foreign nationals seeking visas from Iran, Somalia, Libya, Yemen and Syria, all Muslim-majority countries. But it also extends the restrictions to three new nations: Chad, North Korea and Venezuela.

Sudan, which had been part of the original travel ban, is not part of the new order announced Sunday.

This is the text:

ABC NEWS: President Trump issues new travel ban for visitors from Chad, Iran (except students), Libya, North Korea, Syria, and Yemen pic.twitter.com/XQMEUFeRx3

— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) September 24, 2017

This is what changes and what remains the same:

The new directive largely suspends travel to the United States for immigrants and nonimmigrants with certain types of visas from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. For Venezuela, travel is only suspended for a group of government officials involved in the visa screening and vetting process and their families traveling under certain nonimmigrant visas.

An administration official said that Somalia met the minimum requirements laid out by the US, but would still be subject to restrictions because of the “threat environment” in the country.

Valid visas that were already issued by the US government will not be revoked, the administration said Sunday. The directive also stipulates that US officials can grant waivers to the travel restrictions on a case-by-case basis.

The directive will be rolled out in two phases, according to administration officials. The restrictions on countries already covered under the earlier travel ban will take effect immediately, with an exception for individuals covered by a carve-out ordered by the US Supreme Court, which allows entry for those with a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship” with a US person or entity.

The travel restrictions on the three new countries will take effect on Oct. 18. The restrictions will also kick in then for individuals from countries identified in the earlier travel ban who were covered under the Supreme Court’s “bona fide” exception.

We can probably expect a new spate of challenges from the usual suspects and we can expect that the Supreme Court will hear this case in a few weeks.