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US President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban faces scrutiny in courtrooms across the country. Several states and rights group have brought suits against Republican president’s executive order, supposedly a less draconian than the previous order issued on January 27, which met with deluge of opposition and was subsequently blocked by country’s federal courts.
The revamped order bans all refugees from entering the US for 120 days and halts the granting of new visas for travellers from six mostly-Muslim nations: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days. Iraq, which was included in the first one, was dropped from the list in the second order, and also explicitly exempts legal permanent residents and valid visa holders.
Hawaii was the first state to file suit against the Trump’s amended travel order. The state’s attorney general argued that while the new order features changes to address complaints raised by courts that blocked the first travel ban, the new order is pretty much the same as the first one. The state further said that the order would harm its Muslim population, tourism and foreign students. This second ban is just as unconstitutional as the first as it still reeks of religious animus.
In Washington state, Attorney General Bob Ferguson wants Judge James Robart, who halted the original ban last month, to apply the ruling to the new ban. Ferguson says the new order is unconstitutional and harms residents, universities and businesses, especially tech companies. But the federal lawyers say the revised travel ban is ‘substantially different’ from the original directive.
Washington and Hawaii have maintained that order is an effort to carry out the Muslim ban Trump promised during his campaign and is a violation of the First Amendment, which bars the government from favoring or disfavoring any religion. The new version tries to erase the notion that it was designed to target Muslims by detailing more of a national security rationale.
Mindful of the chaos if the new travel ban comes into effect in the midnight, lawyers and anti-Trump protesters prepared for renewed confrontation at US airports over the president’s revised travel ban on visitors from six majority-Muslim countries that is scheduled to come into effect at midnight. Like in the case of first travel order, volunteers were all set to be in force at many of the major international airports across the country.
If the federal courts decline to extend the current restraining order, and in turn allow the new ban to kick in at midnight, the main US arrivals ports were expected to witness scenes of pandemonium similar to those that followed the first travel order.
This time, travel ban is likely to affect 11,000 refugees the most, who have already cleared all their security and other hurdles and are ready to come to the US pending a final visa. If that happens, the refugees will continue to bear the brunt of the mass humanitarian crisis. They will spend a life in limbo.