Supreme Court allows Trump administration to enforce parts of travel ban

The U.S. Supreme Court has partially reinstated President Donald Trump's executive order that blocks people from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the country.

On Monday, the court agreed to hear the appeal regarding the legality of the travel ban and allowed parts of the administration's emergency request to enforce executive order immediately while the legal battle continues.

The court stated that the ban could be applied to visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen as long as they lack a "credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States."

According to Reuters, the justices also allowed the 120-day ban on all refugees entering the U.S. to go into effect on the same grounds.

The Trump administration filed an appeal to the Supreme Court to reinstate the executive order in June after it was blocked by two federal appeals courts that found it discriminatory. The justices agreed to hear the arguments in the case in October.

Last week, Trump said that the order would take effect 72 hours after it is cleared by courts.

According to Christianity Today, the court allowed refugees with "bona fide relationships with a person or entity in the United States" to enter the country even after Trump's refugee limit of 50,000 is reached this fiscal year.

More than 48,000 refugees have already entered the U.S. this fiscal year, leaving only about 1,200 spots before reaching the limit of 50,000. Last year, about 85,000 refugees were resettled in the country, with more than a third coming from countries affected by the travel ban.

The figures released by the State Department has shown that the number of refugees entering the U.S. each month has fallen by two-thirds over the past year, down to about 3,300 a month in April.

Some refugee resettlement agencies have tried to make up for the low numbers by accelerating resettlement after courts blocked the travel ban.

Trump's original order was revised in March to remove Iraq from the list of countries and withdraw the restrictions on green card holders. The amended version also removed the provision that gives priority to persecuted Christians, which was a matter of debate among American experts and Arab church leaders.

More than 500 evangelical leaders have spoken out against the executive order, but a Pew Research Center study earlier this year found that 76 percent of white evangelicals supported the ban.