President Donald Trump’s temporary ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority countries faces a key legal test on Monday before a U.S. appeals court in Virginia, as his administration aims to convince a federal appeals court that the action was motivated by national security concerns, not by religious bias. The Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was set to hear an hour of arguments in the administration’s appeal of a March 15 ruling by Maryland-based federal judge Theodore Chuang putting the travel ban on hold a day before it was due to go into effect. The Republican president’s travel ban also was blocked by federal judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii in a separate legal challenge. An earlier version of the ban was also blocked by the courts.
