Judge blocks travel ban until further notice

A federal judge in Hawaii is extending his order that blocks President Donald Trump’s travel ban until the state’s lawsuit works its way through the U.S. courts.

HONOLULU — A federal judge in Hawaii decided Wednesday to extend his order blocking President Donald Trump’s travel ban.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson issued the longer-lasting hold on the ban just hours after hearing arguments.

Hawaii says the policy discriminates against Muslims and hurts the state’s tourist-dependent economy. The implied message in the revised ban is like a “neon sign flashing ‘Muslim ban, Muslim ban’” that the government didn’t bother to turn off, state Attorney General Douglas Chin told the judge.

Extending the order until the state’s lawsuit was resolved would ensure the constitutional rights of Muslim citizens across the U.S. are vindicated after “repeated stops and starts of the last two months,” the state has said.

The government says the ban falls within the president’s power to protect national security. Hawaii has only made generalized concerns about its effect on students and tourism, Department of Justice attorney Chad Readler told the judge via telephone.

The Trump administration had asked Watson to narrow his ruling to cover only the part of Trump’s executive order that suspends new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries. Readler said a freeze on the U.S. refugee program had no effect on Hawaii.

Watson rejected that argument, preventing the administration from halting the flow of refugees.

Hawaii was the first state to sue over Trump’s revised ban. The imam of a Honolulu mosque joined the challenge, arguing that the ban would prevent his Syrian mother-in-law from visiting family in Hawaii.

In his arguments, Chin quoted Trump’s comments that the revised travel ban is a “watered down” version of the original.

“We cannot fault the president for being politically incorrect, but we do fault him for being constitutionally incorrect,” Chin said.

Hawaii’s ruling would not be directly affected by a decision siding with the federal government in the Maryland case, legal experts said. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set a hearing for May 8 to consider the administration’s appeal.

“What a ruling in 4th Circuit in favor of the administration would do is create a split in authority between federal courts in different parts of the country,” said Richard Primus, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Michigan law school.

“Cases with splits in authority are cases the U.S. Supreme Court exists to resolve,” he said.