Hawaii wants to keep the welcome open to visitors from six majority muslim countries President Trump hopes to ban. Photo: Ken Lund/Flickr
Hawaii became the first state in the country on Wednesday to legally challenge President Donald Trump’s newly revised travel ban, filing for an immediate injunction against the executive order.
In a press release accompanying a 40-page amended complaint (amended since the state filed a lawsuit against the first iteration of the ban on February 3rd), Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin, a democrat, issued a sharp rebuke of the new order, calling it unconstitutional and essentially a repackaged attempt to “hoodwink the judiciary.”
“[W]hile the President signed a revised version on March 6 . . . we still know exactly what it means. It is another attempt by the Administration to enact a discriminatory ban that goes against the fundamental teachings of our Constitution and our immigration laws, even if it is cloaked in ostensibly neutral terms,” said Attorney General Chin.
“Nothing of substance has changed: There is the same blanket ban on entry from Muslim-majority countries (minus one), the same sweeping shutdown of refugee admissions (absent one exception), and the same lawless warren of exceptions and waivers. The courts did not tolerate the Administration’s last attempt to hoodwink the judiciary, and they should not countenance this one.”
In an interview with the New York Times, Attorney General Chin explained that the travel ban drummed up memories among many Hawaiians of the Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese internment camps during World War II.
The co-plaintiff in the suit, Ismail Elshikh, is the Imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii. Elshikh and the state of Hawaii allege that the revised executive order, “inflicts a grave injury on Muslims in Hawai’i, including Dr. Elshikh, his Family, and members of his Mosque.”
Experts question whether Hawaii’s legal challenge will be capable of halting the newest iteration of the ban from taking effect, the same way a Washington State lawsuit was able to kill the first.
If the president wasn’t feeling the aloha before, he is now.
