FEDERAL JUDGE HALTS NEW TRAVEL BAN
Watson says Trump’s second attempt also lacks evidence of terror threat
A federal judge in Hawaii issued a nationwide halt Wednesday to President Trump’s temporary travel ban targeting six majority- Muslim countries. It was a stinging rebuke of Trump’s second attempt to institute the controversial order hours before it was to take effect.
U. S. District Judge Derrick Watson issued a temporary restraining order against the ban, saying he would reject any immediate government appeals.
Watson wrote in his ruling that the federal government had not proved the ban was needed to protect the USA from terrorists trying to infiltrate the country through legal immigration or the refugee program, citing a “dearth of evidence indicating a national security purpose.” He wrote that despite changes made by the White House to the new ban, it clearly violated constitutional protections of religion.
“A reasonable, objective observer — enlightened by the specific historical context, contemporaneous public statements, and specific sequence of events leading to its issuance — would conclude that the Executive Order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion in spite of its stated, religiously-neutral purpose ,” Watson wrote.
Trump called the ruling an “unprecedented judicial overreach” during a rally in Nashville on Wednesday night.
Trump hinted that Watson’s ruling was motivated by “political reasons,” and said he would appeal the case all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.
Trump’s second attempt to limit travel from those countries had an effective date of 12: 01 a. m. ET Thursday. A group of states, immigration and refugee advocacy groups and private residents filed lawsuits to block the ban from going into effect, as happened when Trump issued his first travel ban in late January.
Judges in Hawaii, Maryland and Washington state heard arguments on those legal challenges, and Hawaii was the first to issue a ruling.
The executive order, signed by Trump on March 6, would have barred citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Syria for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days. It included several changes from the original ban struck down in court.
During Wednesday’s hearings, government lawyers said those changes were to address the concerns raised by judges who blocked the first order.
Lawyers trying to block Trump’s order argued that those tweaks didn’t change the underlying problem of the order — that it discriminated against Muslims. Those groups called Trump’s new order “Muslim Ban 2.0” and said it represented the illegal implementation of his campaign promise to institute a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
The first hearing Wednesday took place in Greenbelt, Md., before U. S. District Judge Theodore Chuang, finished the hearing without issuing a ruling.
The final hearing was held in Washington state before District Judge James Robart who did not issue a ruling.