Trump's immigration order grounded

White House initially calls the judge's decision 'outrageous'; says it will file an emergency appeal

President Donald Trump’s immigration restrictions were temporarily shut down by a federal judge who said the states of Washington and Minnesota can sue claiming their economy and residents would be injured by the ban.

The ruling eclipsed a Trump administration win earlier Friday when a federal judge in Boston refused to extend a temporary ruling blocking enforcement at that city’s airport of the ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. US District Judge James Robart in Seattle said in his ruling that voiding the president’s order throughout the US was needed for consistency.

The White House said in a statement that the Justice Department would file an emergency request at the earliest possible time to freeze the judge’s ruling.

“The president’s order is intended to protect the homeland and he has the constitutional authority and responsibility to protect the American people,” according to the statement. After initially calling the judge’s decision “outrageous,” the White House issued a revised statement removing the word.

The ruling is the most comprehensive legal admonishment of Trump’s January 27 executive order prohibiting immigrants, students, temporary workers and others from Iran, Iraq, Syria and four additional nations from entering the US for 90 days. Judges in Brooklyn, New York, Los Angeles and Alexandria, Virginia, have issued orders that are less sweeping. The Seattle judge also temporarily set aside Trump’s 120-day ban on refugees from those countries.

Meanwhile, citizens of the seven mainly Muslim countries banned by Trump can resume boarding US-bound flights, several major airlines said on Saturday Qatar Airways was the first to say it would allow passengers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen to fly to US cities if they had valid documents.

Air France, Spain’s Iberia and Germany’s Lufthansa all followed suit after the federal judge’s ruling.

But the websites of two other major Gulf airlines, Etihad and Emirates, still carried notices informing passengers of Trump’s original order.

Donald Trump

US Customs and Border Protection told airlines they could board travellers affected within hours of Friday’s ruling, but budget airline Norwegian, which operates transatlantic flights including from London and Oslo, said many uncertainties remained about the legal position.

“It’s still very unclear,” spokeswoman Charlotte Holmbergh Jacobsson said. “We advise passengers to contact the US embassy ... We have to follow the US rules."

In Cairo, aviation sources said Egypt Air and other airlines had told their sales offices of Friday’s ruling and would allow people previously affected by the ban to book flights.

But for some who had changed their travel plans following the ban, the order was not enough reassurance.

In Dubai, Tariq Laham, 32, and his Polish fiancee Natalia had scrapped plans to travel to the United States after they get married in July in Poland. Laham said the couple would not reverse their decision.

“It is just too risky,” said Laham, a Syrian who works as a director of commercial operations at a multinational technology company. “Every day you wake up and there is a new decision.”

The decision by Robart, a 2004 appointee of Republican President George W Bush, carries unique significance because the states were able to link Trump’s edict to its adverse economic impact, said Geoffrey Hoffman, director, University of Houston Law Center Immigration Clinic. The order’s effect on jobs and economic stability is likely to make the temporary ruling difficult for the president to overturn before the judge considers a permanent injunction, he said.

“The Washington suit is so much more broad than anything else we’ve seen because it goes into the economic interests of the parties — that’s a very big development,” Hoffman said of a likely appeal by the federal government. “Appeals of temporary orders occur only in very, very extraordinary measures. I doubt it would be successful.”

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the effects on his state included economic consequences for employers based there, including Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon.com.

Minnesota, like Washington, cited the effect of the ban on students at its colleges and universities, as well as health care centres including the Mayo Clinic. The state’s 5.4 million residents included 30,000 immigrants from the affected countries, it said in the lawsuit.

The court order, effective immediately, will remain in place until the judge considers a motion — probably within a month — to permanently invalidate the president’s order, Ferguson said.

“It is not the loudest voice that prevails on the Constitution,” he said outside the courthouse. “We are a nation of laws, not even the president can violate the Constitution.”

Robart rejected a request by the federal government to put his temporary restraining order on hold. He said he expects the Justice Department to file an appeal as early as Monday.

US Justice Department lawyer Michelle Bennett, arguing at the hearing, said the president was acting within the authority granted him by Congress and there was no financial harm to the states.

Trump has vowed to overturn the judge’s blocking of his executive order.

“The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned,” he said on Twitter.

Bloomberg/Reuters