This is ridiculous. A federal judge in Hawaii has issued a temporary restraining order blocking President Trump’s revised executive order/travel ban.
Wednesday’s ruling marks the second time a federal judge has blocked nationwide enforcement of Mr. Trump’s temporary travel ban. Trump administration officials had gone back to the drawing board to rewrite parts of the original order after a Seattle-based federal judge put the order on hold after opponents raised constitutional concerns about the order and likened it to a Muslim ban, reports The Washington Times.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson came in the nick of time for immigrant and refugee advocacy groups who hoped to stop the revised order from taking effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday. In his 43-page written order, Judge Watson called the administration’s arguments illogical and flawed. Citing prior comments Mr. Trump made as a candidate about his desire to curb immigration of foreign nationals who are Muslim, Judge Watson said “significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus” was behind both the original and revised versions of the executive order.
“These plainly-worded statements, made in the months leading up to and contemporaneous with the signing of the Executive Order, and, in many cases, made by the Executive himself, betray the Executive Order’s stated secular purpose,” Judge Watson said.
Judge Watson wrote that the plaintiffs in the case, the Hawaii attorney general and resident Ismail Elshikh have “shown a strong likelihood of succeeding on their claim that the Executive Order violates First Amendment rights under the Constitution.”
The White House had no immediate comment on the ruling.
Judge Watson is not only wrong, he is way out of bounds. Crashing jetliners into skyscrapers and beheading innocent people are NOT First Amendment rights! This is a national security issue, not a time for politically correct theater.
Furthermore, there is ample precedent for this. That alone makes this a no-brainer. Every president since Jimmy Carter issued such a ban. Episcopalians are not killing innocent people. Muslims are killing innocent people. Is this religious profiling? Yes, absolutely! If Baptists were killing innocent people in the name of their religion, they should be profiled.
President Trump should ignore Judge Watson’s ruling and carry on with his order. He has every right to do that. Then work on getting this case before the Supreme Court.