# Trump v. Hawaii The decision that upheld the travel ban — and formally buried *Korematsu* while echoing it. Decided June 26, 2018 by a 5–4 vote, *Trump v. Hawaii* upheld Presidential Proclamation 9645, the third and final version of the Trump administration's restrictions on entry from several countries, most of them majority-Muslim. The Court held the proclamation fell within the broad authority Congress has delegated to the President over the entry of noncitizens. ## The Holding Chief Justice [[John Roberts]]'s majority opinion applied deferential rational-basis review to the proclamation, declining to look behind its national-security justifications to the President's campaign statements about a "Muslim ban." In a notable passage, Roberts formally repudiated [[Korematsu v. United States]] (1944), declaring the Japanese-internment decision "gravely wrong the day it was decided." But Justice [[Sonia Sotomayor]]'s dissent turned that repudiation against the majority: she argued the Court was "redeploying the same dangerous logic underlying *Korematsu*" — accepting a facially neutral national-security rationale as cover for discrimination against a disfavored group. ## Significance *Trump v. Hawaii* is the modern node in the vault's racial-security through-line that runs from [[Korematsu v. United States]] forward: the recurring pattern in which the Court accepts national-security or sovereignty claims to insulate executive action that burdens a racial, religious, or national-origin group. Roberts's repudiation of *Korematsu* was dicta, not a holding — a formal condemnation paired with a decision many read as replicating its structure. The case also marked an expansive reading of executive power over immigration that prefigured the enforcement posture of the second Trump administration. ## See Also - [[Korematsu v. United States]] — The internment precedent formally repudiated here - [[Donald Trump]] — Whose proclamation the Court upheld