Hawaii first state to challenge new Trump travel ban
Hawaii has become the first US state to file suit against President Donald Trump’s amended travel order banning entry of people from six mainly Muslim countries and suspending refugee resettlement.
The state’s attorney-general on Wednesday said that while the new order features changes to address complaints raised by courts that blocked the first travel ban, the new order is pretty much the same as the first one.
The Pacific state is seeking a nationwide restraining order blocking implementation of the order Trump signed on Monday.
The new order suspends refugee admissions for 120 days and halts the granting of new visas for travellers from Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan. It explicitly exempts Iraqis, who were on the first list, and legal permanent residents and valid visa holders.
“Nothing of substance has changed. There is the same blanket ban on entry from Muslimmajority countries (minus one),” state attorney-general Doug Chin said.
“The courts did not tolerate the administration’s last attempt to hoodwink the judiciary, and they should not countenance this one.”
University of Richmond Law School Professor Carl Tobias said Hawaii’s complaint seemed in many ways similar to Washington’s successful suit, but whether it would prompt a similar result was tough to say.
Given that the new executive order spelt out more of a national security rationale than the old one and allows for some travellers from the six nations to be admitted on a case-by-case basis, it would be harder to show that the new order was intended to discriminate against Muslims, he said.
Trump’s first order sparked a legal, political and logistical furore.