Trump revised travel ban ‘substantially different’ justice department says

A federal judge should not extend his injunction blocking President Trump’s original travel ban to prevent a revised version from taking effect Thursday because the two orders are “substantially different,” the Justice Department argued in court filings made late Tuesday.

The revised executive order on travel and refugees, signed by the president on March 6, addressed all of the prior claims raised by the Washington state attorney general in his complaint that led to the injunction as well as concerns raised by a federal appellate court that upheld the injunction, DOJ attorneys wrote.

U.S. District Judge James Robart will now have to decide whether to enforce his prior preliminary injunction, which on Feb. 3 brought enforcement of Mr. Trump’s original order to a halt just days after it had taken effect. At least two other federal judges are set to hear arguments Wednesday in cases challenging the revised order.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson on Monday filed an amended complaint, detailing the ways he believes state residents, universities, businesses, health care systems and religious organizations will be harmed by the revised order and asking the judge not to let it take effect.

He argued that families would be separated from relatives unable to obtain travel visas, businesses would lose out on revenue from thousands of tourists from the six countries whose entry into the U.S. would be banned, and students and doctors from the affected countries might have to withdraw from university or residency programs amid uncertainty about their visas.

Under the new order, citizens of six Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — will be banned from obtaining visas to come to the United States for 90 days. Iraq was dropped from the original list of banned countries. The new version still will halt for 120 days all refugee resettlement, though it removed the original order’s permanent ban on refugees from Syria and exemptions for religious minorities, namely Christians. It also lowers the number of refugees accepted by the U.S. this year from 110,000 people to 50,000 people.

While the ban is in effect, the Trump administration has pledged to develop an extreme vetting program for all foreign visitors to the U.S., including a biometric entry/exit system to identify who is arriving to and departing from the country.

The Justice Department also defended the executive order against allegations it amounted to a Muslim ban, saying the six countries “represent only a small fraction of the world’s 50 Muslim-majority nations, and are home to less than 9% of the global Muslim population.” The DOJ also noted that the order covers “every national of those countries, including millions of non-Muslim individuals in those countries.”

“The New Executive Order responds to concerns about the Old Executive Order’s aims by removing the provisions that purportedly drew religious distinctions—erasing any doubt that national security, not religion, is the focus,” DOJ attorneys wrote. “In short, the President’s efforts to accommodate courts’ concerns while simultaneously fulfilling his constitutional duty to protect the Nation only confirms that the New Executive Order’s intention most emphatically is not to discriminate along religious lines.”

Judge Robart could potentially issue a ruling in the case Tuesday evening or he could schedule a hearing as soon as Wednesday to seek further information from both parties.