Hawaii, U.S. put dispute to judge

Arguments aired in travel-ban case

HONOLULU — A federal judge in Hawaii on Wednesday questioned a government attorney who urged him to narrow his order blocking President Donald Trump’s travel ban after arguing that a freeze on the nation’s refugee p rogram had no effect on the state.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson heard arguments on whether to extend his temporary order until Hawaii’s lawsuit works its way through the courts. He said he would issue a written ruling by day’s end.

Hawaii says the policy discriminates against Muslims and hurts the state’s 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 Doug Chin told the judge.

“Issue of animus has not been cured,” Chin said. “It’s been intensified.”

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, Justice Department attorney Chad Readler said Wednesday.

Participating by telephone, Readler asked Watson to be guided by narrower rulings blocking only the part of

Trump’s executive order that suspends new visas for people from six Muslimmajority countries.

Watson, an appointee of President Barack Obama, said the government argued only for the narrower interpretation after a federal judge in Maryland blocked the six-nation travel ban but not the suspension of the refugee program. That judge said it wasn’t clear that the refugee freeze was similarly motivated by religious bias.

Watson noted that the government said 20 refugees had been resettled in Hawaii since 2010.

“Is this a mathematical exercise that 20 isn’t enough? …

What do I make of that?” the judge asked Readler.

The government attorney replied that 20 is simply a small number of refugees.

“In whose judgment?” Watson asked.

Constitutional harm exists regardless of the number of people affected or for how long, Hawaii’s attorney general said.

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.

Earlier this month, Watson prevented the federal government from suspending new visas for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria

and Yemen and freezing the nation’s refugee program. That ruling came hours before the federal government planned to start enforcing Trump’s executive order.

The judge had agreed with Hawaii that the ban would hurt the state’s tourism-dependent economy and that it discriminates based on nationality and religion.

Trump at the time called Watson’s ruling an example of “unprecedented judicial overreach.”

The case is State of Hawaii v. Trump, 17-cv-00050, in U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii.

In the Maryland case, a federal judge restricted his preliminary injunction to the section of Trump’s order delaying the approval of new visas for people from the six countries for 90 days. If the

Justice Department persuades the Hawaiian judge to lift his block, only the section barring refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days would take effect.

The administration appealed the Maryland ruling, and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set a hearing for May 8 to consider it.

Trump’s executive order, a revised version of an earlier travel ban, did prevail before a Virginia judge last week. The Hawaii and Maryland orders, however, took precedence.

Meanwhile, opponents of the travel ban are pursuing lawsuits in other courts. Late Tuesday, a some Washington state residents asked for a March 2018 trial over their complaint.

The Justice Department balked, saying that “discovery and trial would thrust courts

into the untenable position of probing the executive’s judgments on foreign affairs and national security.”

On Wednesday, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, defended Trump’s travel ban at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

She insisted it was not meant to exclude Muslims, but instead was intended to strengthen vetting procedures for asylum seekers. At one point, she cited this month’s London terrorist attack as a justification for the travel ban. The London assailant was a native-born Briton.

Watson