Mica Rosenberg & Dan Levine -
The state of Hawaii requested emergency court intervention on Wednesday to halt a revised executive order from President Donald Trump placing US entry restrictions on refugees and travellers from six countries.
Arguing that the new travel ban violates the US Constitution, the state asked a Hawaii federal court to grant a temporary restraining order that should apply nationally.
US 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.
Some legal experts have said court challenges will be more difficult now because changes to the order give exemptions to more people.
A federal judge in Seattle put the first order on hold, in a decision upheld by an appeals court in San Francisco.
Immigration advocates have said the new ban, like the original one, discriminates against Muslims. But the first hurdle in a lawsuit is proving “standing” to sue, which means finding someone who has been harmed by the policy.
With so many exemptions, legal experts have said it might be hard to find individuals that a court would rule have a right to sue.
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. — Reuters
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