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Trump signs revised travel ban, exempts Iraqis

New York Attorney-General Eric Schneiderman called the executive order “a Muslim ban by another name”.

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Iraq is set to be left off the list of countries targeted in Donald Trump’s travel ban, as the president is expected to sign a new executive order.

Hawaii is also joined in the lawsuit by an American who is the imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii and says he has lived in the state for over a decade with his wife and children, but now his Syrian mother-in-law can not visit them because she does not currently hold a visa to enter the USA, according to the report.

Hawaii’s lawsuit says the order will harm the state’s Muslim population, tourism and foreign students.

As others did with the first travel ban, Hawaii is still pointing to campaign trail comments by Trump indicating that he wanted to impose a blanket ban on Muslims as evidence that the order violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment. But it still bars the issuance of new visas to citizens from Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

– Shoulder to shoulder -Iraq’s inclusion in the first order prompted outrage in that country, including from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Earlier this week, Trump revised his January 27 executive order barring visas from seven Muslim-majority countries that harbor terrorism in response to Washington state’s legal challenge, which led to a Seattle judge blocking its implementation February 4. Thielman says this new executive order is no more necessary than the previous order. Chaos erupted at U.S. airports as legal permanent residents and visa holders were detained, and a provision which explicitly exempted religious minorities led many to believe the measure amounted to a religious ban.

The Republican president criticized a court order suspending the ban as “a very bad decision, very bad for the safety and security of our country”.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said that if the measures reach the Senate, “At this point, I don’t see where there are enough amendments to fix this”.

In all, more than two dozen lawsuits were filed to the original travel ban.

The hearing on March 15 would decide as to whether the judges put a halt to the revised order as well or Trump could go on with the ban that has been criticised globally. “Instead, President Trump has recommitted himself to religious discrimination, and he can expect continued disapproval from both the courts and the people”. The judge’s injunction against the order was and then upheld by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals.

Given that the new executive order spells out more of a national security rationale than the old one and allows for some travellers from the six nations to be admitted on a case-by-case basis, it will be harder to show that the new order is meant to discriminate against Muslims, Tobias said.

A Syrian man filed a complaint in federal court in Madison on Friday alleging the travel ban is unconstitutional and will prevent his family from leaving Aleppo and joining him in Wisconsin.

Inslee’s premise that Trump’s ban was “mean-spirited” – presuming the president’s motive behind the order – apparently formed the basis of the Seattle judge’s ruling. Refugees from these countries will be restricted from the USA until a period of 120 days has passed.

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On Wednesday, Judge Derrick Kahala Watson, who is overseeing the case and was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2013, ordered the state to file its application for a restraining order by today and said he will give the Trump administration until Monday to oppose it.

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