Hawaii becomes first state to sue new Trump travel ban
State attorney general says order will harm its tourism, Muslims
The state of Hawaii has become the first state in the US to sue to stop President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban.
Attorneys for the state filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in the federal court in Honolulu. The state had previously sued over Trump’s initial travel ban, but that lawsuit was put on hold while other cases played out.
Hawaii gave notice on Tuesday night that it intended to file an amended lawsuit to cover the new ban, which plans to goes into effect from March 16.
The revised executive order bars new visas for people from six predominantly Muslim countries and temporarily shuts down the US refugee programme.
Hawaii’s lawsuit says the order will harm Hawaii’s Muslim population, tourism and foreign students.
“Hawaii is special in that it has always been non-discriminatory in both its history and constitution,” Attorney General Douglas Chin said. “Twenty percent of the people are foreign-born, 100,000 are non-citizens and 20% of the labour force is foreign-born.”
Chin, who noted the state has budgeted about $150,000 for an outside law firm to help with the lawsuit, said people in Hawaii find the idea of a travel ban based on nationality distasteful because they remember when Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps during World War II.