Maryland will join suit on travel ban
It is among a growing number of states to challenge Trump’s executive orders.
BALTIMORE — Maryland’s attorney general says he plans to use newfound power to sue the federal government by joining a Washington state lawsuit trying to upend President Trump’s new travel ban.
The General Assembly granted Brian E. Frosh, a Democrat, sweeping authority last month to file lawsuits against the Trump administration without first securing Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s approval. When Frosh joins Washington’s lawsuit on Monday, he will use that power for the first time.
Maryland will join New York, Oregon, Massachusetts and Minnesota in the suit, which contends that both of Trump’s temporary travel bans for people from certain predominantly Muslim countries are unconstitutional.
The president last week unveiled a narrower executive order to replace the more expansive one issued in January, which was temporarily blocked by a federal appeals court after Washington state sued.
“The more voices, the better,” Frosh said in an interview. “It’s a Muslim ban. It’s illegal; it’s unconstitutional; it’s un-American.”
The Trump administration has said the travel restrictions are needed to bolster national security. The executive orders have been criticized as a potentially unconstitutional religious test.
The new, narrower order — it bans travel from six countries instead of seven and scales back other provisions — was designed to withstand legal challenges.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the administration felt “very confident with how that was crafted and the input that was given.”
Washington Atty. Gen. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, announced Thursday that he planned to challenge the constitutionality of the latest ban. Hawaii’s Democratic attorney general, Doug Chin, was the first to announce a legal challenge to it.
Frosh said Maryland’s involvement would be handled by an assistant attorney general and the legal work would be spread among the states involved.
All such lawsuits required approval of Maryland’s governor until General Assembly Democrats pushed through a measure last month to let him bypass the office. Maryland was one of nine states that did not grant autonomy to the attorney general through common law.