Travel Ban 2.0 BLOCKED!

[lovedogs]

A federal judge in Hawaii has blocked Trump's new Travel Ban from going into effect (it was supposed to begin tonight at midnight, so technically Thursday).

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/15/politics/travel-ban-blocked/index.html

 

[mary poppins]

Aloha, indeed!

 

[AGBF]

"The New York Times" wrote it up nicely. Here is an excerpt.

"A federal judge in Hawaii issued a nationwide order Wednesday evening blocking President Trump’s ban on travel from parts of the Muslim world, dealing a political blow to the White House and signaling that proponents of the ban face a long and risky legal battle ahead.

The ruling was the second frustrating defeat for Mr. Trump’s travel ban, after a federal court in Seattle halted an earlier version of the executive order last month. Mr. Trump responded to that setback with fury, lashing out at the judiciary before ultimately abandoning the order.

He issued a new and narrower travel ban on March 6, with the aim of pre-empting new lawsuits by abandoning some of the most contentious elements of the first version.

But Mr. Trump evidently failed in that goal: Democratic states and nonprofit groups that work with immigrants and refugees raced into court to attack the updated order, alleging that it was a thinly veiled version of the ban on Muslim migration that he had pledged to enact last year, as a presidential candidate.

Administration lawyers argued in multiple courts on Wednesday that the president was merely exercising his national security powers and that no element of the executive order, as written, could be construed as a religious test for travelers.

But in the lawsuit brought by Hawaii’s attorney general, Doug Chin, Judge Derrick K. Watson appeared skeptical of the government’s claim that past comments by Mr. Trump and his allies had no bearing on the case.

'Are you saying we close our eyes to the sequence of statements before this?' Judge Watson, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, asked in a hearing Wednesday before he ruled against the administration.

Mr. Trump’s original ban, released on Jan. 27, unleashed scenes of chaos at American airports and spurred mass protests. Issued abruptly on a Friday afternoon, it temporarily barred travel from seven majority-Muslim nations, making no explicit distinction between citizens of those countries who already had green cards or visas and those who did not.

It also suggested that Christian refugees from those countries would be given preference in the future, opening it up to accusations that it unlawfully targeted Muslims for discrimination.

After a federal court in Seattle issued a broad injunction against the policy, Mr. Trump removed major provisions and reissued the order. The new version exempted key groups, like green card and visa holders, and dropped the section that would have given Christians special treatment.

Mr. Trump also removed Iraq from the list of countries covered by the ban after the Pentagon expressed worry that it would damage the United States’ relationship with the Iraqi government in the fight against the Islamic State.

Yet those concessions did not placate critics of the ban, who argue that it still imposes a de facto religious test on travelers from big parts of the Middle East.

The lawsuits have also claimed that the order disrupts the functions of companies, charities, public universities and hospitals that have deep relationships overseas. In the Hawaii case, nearly five dozen technology companies, including Airbnb, Dropbox, Lyft and TripAdvisor, joined in a brief objecting to the travel ban.

The new executive order preserves major components of the original. It halts, with few exceptions, the granting of new visas and green cards to people from six majority-Muslim countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — for at least 90 days. It also stops all refugees from entering for 120 days and limits refugee admissions to 50,000 people in the current fiscal year. Former President Barack Obama had set in motion plans to admit more than twice that number.

Mr. Trump has said the pause is needed to re-evaluate screening procedures for immigrants from the six countries before allowing travel to resume. 'Each of these countries is a state sponsor of terrorism, has been significantly compromised by terrorist organizations, or contains active conflict zones,' he wrote in the order, signed March 6."

Link...https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/us/politics/trump-travel-ban.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

AGBF

 

[lovedogs]

Thanks for the link, Deb! CNN reported some quotes from the judge that I particularly like:

"The illogic of the Government's contentions is palpable. The notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed," Watson wrote.
"Equally flawed is the notion that the Executive Order cannot be found to have targeted Islam because it applies to all individuals in the six referenced countries," Watson added. "It is undisputed, using the primary source upon which the Government itself relies, that these six countries have overwhelmingly Muslim populations that range from 90.7% to 99.8%."
"It would therefore be no paradigmatic leap to conclude that targeting these countries likewise targets Islam," Watson added. "Certainly, it would be inappropriate to conclude, as the Government does, that it does not."
"When considered alongside the constitutional injuries and harms ... and the questionable evidence supporting the Government's national security motivations, the balance of equities and public interests justify granting the Plaintiffs' (request to block the new order)," Watson wrote.

 

[LLJsmom]

 

[Matata]

Instead of a war on "radical Islamic terrorists", I believe we need a war on rich white men in US government. Get thee behind me satanic white men wearing white shirts, dark suits and those ties that limit oxygen and blood flow to their brains rendering them incapable of recognizing their reflections in their highly polished dress shoes.

 

[katharath]

So good to see our judicial system flexing its muscles!

 

[lovedogs]

So good to see our judicial system flexing its muscles!

hooray for checks and balances!

 

[chrono]

Thank goodness for the courts.

 

[redwood66]

If Hawaii cares so much about immigrants and refugees they ought to practice what they preach. DC too. Perhaps they are just NIMBYs.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/12/06/just-10-states-resettled-more-than-half-of-recent-refugees-to-u-s/

excerpt:

At the other end of the spectrum, some states and the District of Columbia took in few or no refugees in fiscal 2016. Arkansas, the District of Columbia and Wyoming resettled fewer than 10 refugees each, while two states – Delaware and Hawaii – took in none.

 

[SMC]

If Hawaii cares so much about immigrants and refugees they ought to practice what they preach. DC too. Perhaps they are just NIMBYs.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/12/06/just-10-states-resettled-more-than-half-of-recent-refugees-to-u-s/

excerpt:

At the other end of the spectrum, some states and the District of Columbia took in few or no refugees in fiscal 2016. Arkansas, the District of Columbia and Wyoming resettled fewer than 10 refugees each, while two states – Delaware and Hawaii – took in none.

State governments don't really have control over how many refugees they take. It's up to the federal government and the resettlement agencies: http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/11/25/55878/how-refugees-are-resettled-in-the-united-states/

 

[redwood66]

If Hawaii cares so much about immigrants and refugees they ought to practice what they preach. DC too. Perhaps they are just NIMBYs.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/12/06/just-10-states-resettled-more-than-half-of-recent-refugees-to-u-s/

excerpt:

At the other end of the spectrum, some states and the District of Columbia took in few or no refugees in fiscal 2016. Arkansas, the District of Columbia and Wyoming resettled fewer than 10 refugees each, while two states – Delaware and Hawaii – took in none.

State governments don't really have control over how many refugees they take. It's up to the federal government and the resettlement agencies: http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/11/25/55878/how-refugees-are-resettled-in-the-united-states/

If they want to take refugees they will be afforded the opportunity. They must have resettlement services or groups to help them. I found one.

http://www.pacificgatewaycenter.org/refugee-services.html

 

[SMC]

If Hawaii cares so much about immigrants and refugees they ought to practice what they preach. DC too. Perhaps they are just NIMBYs.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/12/06/just-10-states-resettled-more-than-half-of-recent-refugees-to-u-s/

excerpt:

At the other end of the spectrum, some states and the District of Columbia took in few or no refugees in fiscal 2016. Arkansas, the District of Columbia and Wyoming resettled fewer than 10 refugees each, while two states – Delaware and Hawaii – took in none.

State governments don't really have control over how many refugees they take. It's up to the federal government and the resettlement agencies: http://www.scpr.org/news/2015/11/25/55878/how-refugees-are-resettled-in-the-united-states/

If they want to take refugees they will be afforded the opportunity. They must have resettlement services or groups to help them. I found one.

http://www.pacificgatewaycenter.org/refugee-services.html

I'm sure if refugees got resettled to Hawaii by the federal government, they would be welcomed. The governor has already said they'd welcome refugees. But again, state governments don't have control over how many refugees they take. TBH, I don't think Hawaii is the right place for refugees either due to the high cost of living.