Attorney General Ferguson: Revised Trump travel ban still subject to federal judge’s earlier ruling

Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Thursday he’s still winning.

Ferguson said the injunction he won from a federal judge in blocking key sections of President Trump’s first executive order on immigration also applies to the new version of the travel ban issued this week by the administration.

“My message to President Trump is — not so fast,” Ferguson said.

“After spending more than a month to fix a broken order that he rushed out the door, the president’s new order reinstates several of the same provisions and has the same illegal motivations as the original,” he added.

Ferguson said he would ask U.S. District Court James L. Robart — the judge in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington who granted a temporary restraining order against Trump’s first travel ban — to confirm that the injunction he issued remains in full force.

The attorney general believes the burden is on the Trump Administration to argue that the injunction Ferguson obtained earlier from Robart no longer blocks the ban.

Washington filed the first state lawsuit challenging the administration’s move to restrict immigration from seven majority-Muslim nations and the resettlement of refugees on Jan. 30.

Robart issued the temporary restraining order Feb. 3, which halted implementation of that first executive order nationwide.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals later upheld Robart’s order in its entirety.

Ferguson said this week key provisions of Trump’s new executive order remain largely the same as the original travel ban, and so it’s still subject to Washington state’s lawsuit and the following injunction.

The ongoing lawsuit claims Trump’s travel ban is unconstitutionally and violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause, by disfavoring Islam.

Ferguson noted Washington state doesn’t need to show that the ban impacts all Muslims, that it covers only Muslims or that it was motivated solely by anti-Islam feelings. Instead, Washington must show that the anti-Muslim focus was one motivating factor behind the executive order.

The Ferguson lawsuit also claims that Trump’s actions violate the Immigration and Nationality Act, as well as the Administrative Procedures Act.

Similar allegations that the Obama Administration did not comply with the Administrative Procedures Act, Ferguson noted, formed the basis for court decisions suspending President Obama’s immigration reform programs in the court case Texas v. United States.

The Washington State Attorney General’s Office plans to file an amended complaint on the underlying merits of the lawsuit early next week.

Officials said Oregon and New York will seek to join the case.

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