U.S. Supreme Court relaxes travel ban for grandparents, relatives

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a lower court opinion that temporarily exempts grandparents and other relatives from travel ban.

The court, however, lifted an order exempting a category of refugees from the travel ban.

Wednesday's order is a follow-up to the court's ruling in June that the travel ban could not go into effect for those people with a "bonafide connection" to a person or entity in the United States.

The Trump administration subsequently issued guidelines interpreting the ruling to cover some relatives - but not grandparents, uncles, aunts and others.

Following this, challengers immediately went back to court and argued that the Trump administration had interpreted the court's ruling too narrowly. Federal district judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii agreed and relaxed the travel ban as it applies to grandparents.

The Supreme Court will hear the overall challenge to the travel ban later this year.

The travel ban affects people from Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.