Fifty-seven percent of Americans say federal courts were right in blocking President Donald Trump’s travel ban while 39 percent disagree with the judges, according to a new poll.

Not surprisingly, the poll, by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, shows opinions are sharply divided along partisan lines: 82 percent of Democrats favor the courts’ rulings on this issue, while 73 percent of Republicans do not. Fifty-six percent of independents agree with the courts.

Sixty-two percent of those polled agreed that trying to protect the United States from security threats was a major reason for the travel ban, while 26 percent thought it was a minor reason and 11 percent thought it was not a reason at all.

Half of all those who responded to the poll said they think preventing Muslims from entering the country was a major reason for the ban, while 20 percent said it was a minor reason. Twenty-eight percent thought it was not a reason.

Trump’s original order banning people from seven Middle Eastern nations was blocked in federal court, and an appeals court later concurred with the ruling. A second, slightly modified order was also blocked.

The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to immediately reinstate the updated ban, saying the United States will be safer if it is in place.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,068 adults was conducted June 8–11 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

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