Hawaii federal judge extends court order blocking Trump travel ban

A federal judge in Hawaii decided on Wednesday to extend his order blocking President Donald Trump’s travel ban

Judge Watson turned his earlier temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction
Judge Watson turned his earlier temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction

A US federal judge in Hawaii has indefinitely extended the suspension of President Trump's revised travel ban to the United States from six predominantly Muslim countries.

US District Judge Derrick Watson turned an earlier temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by the state of Hawaii challenging Trump's travel directive as unconstitutional religious discrimination.

Hawaii said the policy discriminates against Muslims and hurts the state’s tourist-dependent economy. The implied message in the revised ban is like a “neon sign flashing ‘Muslim ban, Muslim ban’” that the government did not bother to turn off, state attorney general Douglas Chin told the judge.

Extending the temporary restraining order until the state’s lawsuit was resolved would ensure the constitutional rights of Muslim citizens across the US were protected after the “repeated stops and starts of the last two months”, the state said.

The government said the ban fell within the President’s power to protect national security. Hawaii had made only generalised concerns about its effect on students and tourism, department of justice attorney Chad Readler told the judge via telephone.

The Trump administration had asked Watson to narrow his original ruling to cover only the part of Trump’s revised executive order that suspends new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries. Readler said a freeze on the US refugee program had no effect on Hawaii.

Watson rejected that argument, preventing the administration from halting the arrival of refugees.

Trump signed the new ban on 6 March in a bid to overcome legal problems with a January executive order that caused chaos at airports and sparked mass protests before a Washington judge stopped its enforcement in February. Trump has said the travel ban is needed for national security.

Hawaii and other opponents of the ban claim that the motivation behind it is based on religion and Trump's election campaign promise of "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."

Hawaii was the first state to sue over Trump’s revised ban.