Massachusetts to join court battle against Trump travel ban

BOSTON: Massachusetts plans to join a court fight against US President Donald Trump's order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, a move that the state's attorney general criticized as unconstitutional.

Attorney General Maura Healey, a Democrat, said in a posting on Twitter late Monday that her office would join a lawsuit in federal court challenging the ban. A federal judge in Boston, home to Logan International Airport, on Saturday blocked Trump's order from being enforced for seven days.

“We will be joining in a lawsuit challenging Trump's immigration order,” Healy said on Twitter. “What he did was unconstitutional harmful to (Massachusetts).”

Massachusetts would be following the lead of Washington state, which said it would be filing a lawsuit in federal court challenging the ban.

Trump's order halted travel by people with passports from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, and stopped the resettlement of refugees for 120 days.

In an interview with a Christian broadcaster over the weekend, Trump said he would give preference to Syrian Christians seeking refugee status.

The White House has described the ban as necessary “to protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States.” — Reuters