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Courts

State Attorney General reviewing Trump’s new travel ban

Erin Fenner   March 6, 2017  

Washington’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson got national attention for a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order, issued late January.

The ban caused chaos in airports as travelers were held up or stranded, and legal residents were turned away at customs. With the courts ruling in favor of Ferguson, at least as far as issuing a stay on the ban, travelers were able to make it into the U.S.

Trump walked back the original order and announced he would draft a different one. The second draft came out Monday morning.

NPR published the full text of the order here with annotations.

The new travel ban was proposed under much different circumstances. Instead of a sudden release on a Friday afternoon, the executive order’s release was pushed back multiple times, announced before it was set to take effect and issued on a Monday. The second order was also written to apparently avoid some of the most-criticized elements of the first order: Iraq was taken off the list of countries and permanent residents are also not banned from entering the country, according to multiple news outlets.

The second ban was not signed publicly, according to reporting from the Washington Post. And though it’s not as far-reaching, it still dramatically changes travel and immigration policy in the U.S. It caps refugee resettlement at 50,000 people (down from 110,000), and the refugee program will be suspended for 120 days. The six countries of origin that certain travelers may not enter the U.S. from are: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

 

Ferguson issued a statement Monday morning, and assured the public that his team would review the order and challenge it if it ran into the same type of problems. Here’s the full statement:

“By rescinding his earlier Executive Order, President Trump makes one thing perfectly clear: His original travel ban was indefensible — legally, constitutionally and morally.

The President has capitulated on numerous key provisions blocked by our lawsuit, including bans on Green Card holders, visa holders and dual citizens, an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees, and explicit preferences based on religion.

We are carefully reviewing the new Executive Order to determine its impacts on Washington State and our next legal steps.”

He spoke later in the day, and said he anticipates his team will know whether to pursue litigation by the end of the week.

Civil rights groups, activists, concerned citizens and government leaders responded on social media to the second order.

The new ban is criticized for one of the same reasons the first ban was called out for: The ban does not appear to target countries that were home to terrorists who led deadly attacks on the U.S.

The other criticism many are focusing on also is in sync with why the first ban was thrown out. Many say it still amounts to religious discrimination.

Erin Fenner: erin@washingtonstatewire.com, @erinfenner

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