AG Shapiro declines to join challenge to revised travel ban
Harrisburg Bureau
HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said Monday that his decision not to join a recent amicus brief in a challenge to President Donald Trump’s revised travel restriction policy was “guided by the rule of law.”
Last week, 16 Democratic state attorneys general — but not Mr. Shapiro — filed a brief supporting Hawaii in its effort to block the revised order, which Mr. Trump issued after his original travel ban order was blocked by courts.
After highlighting his support for legal challenges to Mr. Trump’s original travel ban in a written statement, the Democratic attorney general
criticized the second executive order but acknowledged that he had not joined a friend-of-the-court brief seeking to block it.
“I was proud to be a leader amongst state attorneys general in the first legal battle over the president’s travel ban. That successful effort was always about defending the rule of law and the interests of Pennsylvanians,” Mr. Shapiro said in the statement.
“I wish the president would withdraw this second travel ban just as he did the first one,” he continued. “I’ve never been afraid of standing up to the president when we disagree. This ban does not make us more safe, and is not in the best interests of our country. My decision not to join the amicus brief in the revised travel ban is also guided by the rule of law.”
The written remarks seemed to imply that the revised order did not share the legal shortcomings Mr. Shapiro saw in the first one. A spokesman for Mr. Shapiro declined to elaborate on the statement.
The original executive order, which Mr. Trump signed in January, temporarily halted the entry of refugees into the United States and temporarily blocked entry from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Days later, Mr. Shapiro’s office said the Pennsylvania attorney general had organized a joint statement from state attorneys general criticizing the order as “unconstitutional, un-American and unlawful.”
In early February, his office announced that Mr. Shapiro and other state attorneys general had filed a brief supporting Washington and Minnesota in a lawsuit against the immigration order. It also announced he had joined other states in a brief supporting a lawsuit by Virginia.
The original order was blocked by federal courts.
In March, Mr. Trump signed another executive order, this one stopping citizens of six majority-Muslim countries — no longer including Iraq — from entering the United States. The revised order excludes visa holders, and it does not include language giving preference to religious minorities.
The second order has been put on hold by federal judges.