Trump’s “Muslim Ban 2.0” Blocked By Federal Judge

And there it is.

“Muslim Ban 2.0” has been blocked by a federal judge.

Earlier this week 13 states, including New York and California, filed amicus briefs supporting the Hawaii attorney general’s bid to block Trump’s revised travel ban.

Wednesday’s ruling grants the state’s request for a temporary restraining order and puts Trump’s second attempt to restrict visas for 90 days for nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen on hold.

The ruling comes just hours before the new order was set to go into effect.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson said the restraining order applies nationwide.

As I put it last week…

if that second travel ban gets blocked trump's head will explode

— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) March 10, 2017

From WaPo

A federal judge in Hawaii has frozen President Trump’s new executive order temporarily barring the issuance of new visas to citizens of six-Muslim majority countries and suspending the admission of new refugees.

U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson froze the order nationwide.

Watson was the second of three judges to hear arguments Wednesday on whether to freeze the ban. A federal judge in Maryland said he also could rule before day’s end after a morning hearing, and the same federal judge in Washington state who suspended Trump’s first travel ban was set to hear arguments starting at 5 p.m. Eastern.

The hearing in Hawaii came in response to a lawsuit filed by the state itself. Lawyers for Hawaii alleged the new travel ban, much like the old, violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment because it is essentially a Muslim ban, hurts the ability of state businesses and universities to recruit top talent and damages the state’s robust tourism industry.

They pointed particularly to the case of Ismail Elshikh, the imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, whose mother-in-law’s application for an immigrant visa was still being processed. Under the new executive order, lawyers for Hawaii said, Elshikh feared that his mother-in-law would ultimately be banned from entering the United States.

Here are the big takeaways from today's Hawaii v. Trump immigration ruling https://t.co/NXrHQP2bDG pic.twitter.com/iFwuw8pqjF

— Bloomberg (@business) March 15, 2017