A federal judge in Hawaii has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump Administration’s revised travel ban from taking effect, according to The Washington Post. The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson, froze the travel ban before it was scheduled to take effect at midnight.
Watson was one of three judges to hear arguments against President Trump’s executive order on Wednesday, with hearings in Maryland and Washington State also taking place. Lawyers for the state of Hawaii, which filed the lawsuit, claimed that the revised executive order was — much like the original executive order — essentially a Muslim ban, as it targeted citizens of six-Muslim majority countries, and thusly violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
The revised executive order, entitled “Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States,” calls for the suspension of the US refugee program for 120 days, bans the issuance of new visas for citizens of Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Iran, and Sudan for 90 days, and cuts the number of refugees allowed to enter the US in 2017 from 110,000 to 50,000.
The block of the revised travel ban is a major blow the Trump administration, which designed the second ban to pass the judicial scrutiny that brought about the demise of the initial order. This fight isn’t over yet — it’s likely that the White House will argue to have the executive order reinstated.
