Washington state to challenge Trump travel ban as legal opposition mounts

President Donald Trump has signed a new executive order temporarily banning all refugees, as well as people from six majority-Muslim countries, from entering the United States, Democracy Now! said on March 7.

A day after Hawaii mounted the first legal challenge against President Donald Trump’s new executive order on immigration, at least five other states banded together to block the travel ban. The effort to enforce that order against the new travel ban directive will be joined by the states of NY and OR and perhaps others to come, Ferguson said.

After the Trump ban was blocked the first time, the approval process restarted for the Syrian family and they’re now preparing to travel to Jordan for visa interviews at the US embassy, the last step before USA customs officials decide whether to issue them visas. The judge ruled within hours of the man’s request Friday for a temporary restraining order, saying the man “is at great risk of suffering irreparable harm” if the request is denied.

The states of Washington and Minnesota in a response notice argue that sections of the new order have the same effect as the original one and that the federal government can’t unilaterally decide to change a court’s previous ruling.

His decision has the backing of NY and OR attorneys general, who are set to follow suit and fight the second version of the travel ban.

“This second Executive Order is infected with the same legal problems as the first Order”, the state said in court papers filed on Tuesday.

Hawaii’s lawsuit argues that while the language in Trump’s revised executive order has changed, it is merely the president’s latest effort to enact what he promised early in his campaign: a Muslim ban.

The original order, which Trump signed January 27, barred entry for 90 days for nationals of Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen.

The new order is much more narrowly tailored.

The Washington case contends that Trump’s ban is in violation of the U.S. constitution’s first amendment’s equal protection clause.

A federal judge in Maryland, Theodore Chuang, has scheduled a hearing in the case for March 15 – the day before the measure is to take effect.

Imam Ismail Elshikh of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, a plaintiff in the state’s challenge, says the ban will keep his Syrian mother-in-law from visiting. “We are challenging the revised order because we believe it has the same central constitutional flaws that the initial order had, which is that it discriminates on the basis of religion”.

New York City was expecting foreign tourist numbers to remain unchanged at 12.7 million but has cut its forecast for 2017 by 300,000.