Just one day after Hawaii filed a suit against the newly-revised but still very awful travel ban signed by Donald Trump, Washington state has renewed its request to block the executive order.
CNN reports that Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s suit against the new travel ban will be joined by New York, Massachusetts, and Oregon. Ferguson’s suit points fingers at the words of the administration, alleging that “the principles of the order remain the same” and that White House officials have admitted that their “current motivations are no different than the first time around.”
Washington state was the first to file a suit against the original travel ban in February, which resulted in the nationwide temporary restraining order that essentially shut it down. Speaking to reporters, Ferguson was crystal clear about his motivations. The messy rollout of the first travel ban produced a result that was xenophobic, extremely damaging and kind of illegal. The second travel ban, set to take effect March 16th, looks to be more of the same.
From the Associated Press:
“My message to President Trump is — not so fast,” Ferguson told reporters. “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.”
The Washington Post reports that lawyers for Washington state will try to use the President’s own words and those of his advisers “endorsing the idea of a Muslim ban” against them as evidence of violating the Constitution.
Given the fact that Donald Trump is still, somehow, allowed to use Twitter with the unfettered glee of a person live-tweeting an awards show, something tells me that it won’t be very hard.
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