UPDATE: Washington and New York join Hawaii in Trump suit
March 09, 2017
UPDATE [14:55 ET]: New York and Washington state have joined Hawaii in a legal challenge to President Trump’s executive order on immigration restriction.
According to BBC, Minnesota and Oregon are also reportedly filing lawsuits seeking to obstruct the travel halt order.
Hawaii has issued the first legal challenge to President Trump’s revised extreme vetting order
(WASHINGTON, DC) The state of Hawaii requested emergency court intervention on Wednesday to halt a revised executive order from President Donald Trump placing U.S. entry restrictions on refugees and travelers from six Muslim-majority countries.
Arguing that the new travel ban violates the U.S. Constitution, the state asked a Hawaii federal court to grant a temporary restraining order that should apply nationally.
U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson ruled earlier in the day that the state could sue over Trump’s new order, which was signed by the president on Monday.
It is the first legal challenge to the revised order.
Watson said the state could revise its initial lawsuit, which had challenged Trump’s original ban signed in January.
A hearing is set for March 15, a day before the new ban is to go into effect.
Hawaii claims its state universities would be harmed by the order because they would have trouble recruiting students and faculty. It also says the island state’s economy would be hit by a decline in tourism. The court papers cite reports that travel to the United States “took a nosedive” after Trump’s actions.
The state was joined by a new plaintiff named Ismail Elshikh, an American citizen from Egypt who is an Imam at the Muslim Association of Hawaii whose mother-in-law lives in Syria, according to the lawsuit.
“This second Executive Order is infected with the same legal problems as the first Order,” the state said in court papers filed on Tuesday. The President’s order “is subjecting a portion of Hawaii’s population, including Dr. Elshikh, his family, and members of his Mosque, to discrimination and second-class treatment,” Hawaii said.
Reuters copy, TRUNEWS analysis
Please contact TRUNEWS correspondent Edward Szall with any news tips related to this story.
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