President Trump’s revised travel ban was blocked nationwide by a Hawaiian judge hours before it was set to go into effect.
In another massive blow to the Trump administration, the President’s revised executive order which is designed to prevent citizens from six majority-Muslim countries from entering the US, was blocked on Wednesday night by a federal judge in Hawaii, only hours before it was set to go into effect.
Judge Derrick Watson, of the federal district court in Honolulu, concluded that the state had established “a strong likelihood of success” on their claims of religious discrimination. His 43-page ruling argued that taking into account the context of the Executive Order would conclude it “was issued with a purpose to disfavour a particular religion”.
Trump vented his anger at a rally in Nashville on Wednesday night, saying that the order he blocked was a watered-down version of the first one. He claimed “this, in the opinion of many, an unprecedented judicial overreach.” The president pledged to take the issue to the Supreme Court if necessary.
On Thursday morning, another federal judge also made a block, ruling it was essentially a ban on Muslims, and therefore violated the First Amendment.
US District Judge Theodore Chuang of Maryland said: “Direct statements of President Trump’s animus towards Muslims and intention to impose a ban on Muslims entering the United States, present a convincing case that the First Executive Order was issued to accomplish, as nearly as possible, President Trump’s promised Muslim ban. In particular, the direct statements by President Trump and Mayor Giuliani’s account of his conversations with President Trump reveal that the plan had been to bar the entry of nationals of predominantly Muslim countries deemed to constitute dangerous territory in order to approximate a Muslim ban without calling it one – precisely the form of the travel ban in the First Executive Order.”
The Justice Department has yet to indicate its next legal steps.
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