{"id":294360,"date":"2017-02-15T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T06:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=294360"},"modified":"2017-02-15T06:00:19","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T06:00:19","slug":"trump-travel-ban-hit-by-new-legal-setback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=294360","title":{"rendered":"Trump travel ban hit by new legal setback"},"content":{"rendered":"

A US district judge in Virginia has ruled that President Donald Trump’s executive order barring entry from seven countries is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

Judge Leonie Brinkema issued a preliminary injunction, asserting that the campaign vow to institute a “Muslim ban” violated the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

The Monday ruling is significant, as the judge ruled that religious bias is at the heart of Mr Trump’s ban.<\/p>\n

Another US judge has already upheld an order stopping implementation.<\/p>\n

The First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing laws that favour one religion over another.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month a judge in California upheld a lower court’s decision to bar the federal government from beginning implementation of the ban, which temporarily prohibits travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, and indefinitely suspends the refugee admissions programme.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Protests
Protests broke out at US airports, including here in Virginia, after Mr Trump announced the ban<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n

In her 22-page ruling, the Virginia judge cited several of Mr Trump’s campaign statements including those in which he promised to create a “Muslim ban” if he were elected president.<\/p>\n

“The president himself acknowledged the conceptual link between a Muslim ban and the EO (executive order),” Judge Brinkema wrote.<\/p>\n

She also criticised the president’s statements that persecuted Christians may be permitted entry despite the ban, which she said amounts to a religious test.<\/p>\n

She also referenced a Fox News interview in which former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Trump adviser, said that the president wants a “Muslim ban” and that he had been instructed by Mr Trump to put together a commission to determine “the right way to do it legally”.<\/p>\n

Judge Brinkema sharply criticised lawyers for the justice department, who she said did not present any evidence except for the president’s executive order.<\/p>\n

“Maximum power does not mean absolute power,” she wrote. “Every presidential action must still comply with the limits set” by the separation of powers laid out in the US Constitution.<\/p>\n

\"Graphic<\/span><\/figure>\n

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, who argued the case against the ban, praised the judge’s decision saying “the overwhelming evidence shows that this ban was conceived in religious bigotry”.<\/p>\n

The temporary injunction applies only to residents of Virginia and faculties of state universities who may have been affected by the new travel restrictions.<\/p>\n

The case was brought to the court in Alexandria, Virginia, on behalf of two Yemeni brothers who were turned away from the US shortly after arriving at Dulles International Airport.<\/p>\n

The Yemeni men have since been allowed to enter the United States.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump has said that he is considering rewriting the executive order, rather than bring the case to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A US district judge in Virginia has ruled that President Donald Trump’s executive order barring entry from seven countries is unconstitutional. Judge Leonie Brinkema issued a preliminary injunction, asserting that the campaign vow to institute a “Muslim ban” violated the First Amendment. The Monday ruling is significant, as the judge ruled that religious bias is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}