Federal judges in Hawaii, Maryland block travel ban
A federal judge in Maryland early Wednesday joined another federal judge in Hawaii, halting President Donald Trump’s latest travel ban.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang’s order came just hours after U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii issued an order Tuesday blocking Trump’s ban for what he said was its violation of immigration law.
Chuang wrote that the president’s campaign trail comments about Muslims and his Twitter postings pointed to the ban being an unconstitutional example of discrimination against Muslims.
The newest travel rules, which Trump signed Sept. 24, were supposed to go into full effect on Wednesday and indefinitely ban entry to the U.S. by most nationals of Syria, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea. They also restrict travel by certain Venezuelan government officials and their families.
Watson’s order, issued in response to a lawsuit filed jointly by the state of Hawaii, a Honolulu-based mosque, its imam and two state residents who have relatives in the affected countries, prevents the government from enforcing the new restrictions on travel from all of the nations except North Korea and Venezuela.
The ban’s opponents did not ask the judge to strike down the travel rules for certain Venezuelans or the North Korea restrictions, which do little to change longexisting U.S. policy toward that country.
Watson wrote that the ban goes against the Immigration and Nationality Act and “plainly discriminates based on nationality” in a way that is “antithetical” to American principles. He said the order “suffers from precisely the same maladies as its predecessor: it lacks sufficient findings that the entry of more than 150 million nationals from six specified countries” would harm U.S. interests.
Chuang’s block of the ban was more limited. It said the administration could not enforce the ban on any person with a “bona fide” connection to the U.S., such as close relatives who live in the country.
The White House vowed to fight to re-establish the ban, issuing a statement Tuesday saying Watson’s order “undercuts the president’s efforts to keep the American people safe and enforce minimum security standards for entry into the United States.”
The Justice Department said it would appeal. “Today’s ruling is incorrect, fails to properly respect the separation of powers, and has the potential to cause serious negative consequences for our national security,” agency spokesman Ian D. Prior said in a statement on the Hawaii ruling.
Speaking Wednesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions said the administration would fight the case up to the Supreme Court.
“It is a lawful and necessary order that we are proud to defend,” he said. “We’re confident that we will prevail as time goes by in the Supreme Court.”
In the meantime, the State Department said it had notified consulates to resume processing visas for Chad, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Iran pending further legal proceedings.
In the Hawaii lawsuit, challengers said the ban would hurt Hawaii’s tourism industry as well as its state university system, which has students, professors and visitors from the blocked countries. The schools have 20 students from the eight countries, and five graduate school applications from the countries for the spring semester.