Hawaii will file a legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s new executive order temporarily barring travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries, according to a filing submitted Tuesday.
The state will ask a federal judge for a temporary restraining order against the new order on Wednesday, per the filing.
Neal Katyal, one of the attorneys representing the state, told CNN that while “the new executive order covers fewer people than the old one” the replacement travel ban still “suffers from the same constitutional and statutory defects.”
He also told MSNBC that that the administration’s argument that the temporary ban is necessary for national security is undermined by the fact that the new order signed Monday will not go into effect until next week.
“Of course, this time not only did he take a week but he took 10 days,” Katyal said. “So I really think it just underscores the lack of national security justification here — this isn’t about protecting us from bad guys rushing into the country, this is about politics.”
State Attorney General Doug Chin (pictured above) called the new order “nothing more than Muslim ban 2.0,” according to Hawaii News Now.
Hawaii, which also sued the Trump administration over the original order, would be the first state to challenge the new travel ban.
Trump’s new order removes Iraq from the list of banned countries, exempts green card holders, and no longer singles out Syrian refugees for an indefinite suspension. The order also removes a provision present in the original order that gave priority to refugees who are in a religious minority.
