Hawaii files request to block new immigration executive order News
Hawaii files request to block new immigration executive order

[JURIST] Hawaii filed a request [complaint, PDF] shortly before midnight on Tuesday for a temporary injunction to block President Donald Trump’s new immigration executive order [text]. Hawaii claims that this new executive order is “infected” with the same legal problems as the original executive order [text]—”undermining bedrock constitutional and statutory guarantees.” Hawaii claims that the new executive order:

is subjecting a portion of Hawaii’s population … to discrimination and second-class treatment, in violation of both the Constitution and the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Order denies them their right to associate with family members overseas on the basis of their religion and national origin. And it results in their having to live in a country and in a State where there is the perception that the Government has established a disfavored religion.

The co-plaintiff is Ismail Elshikh, a US citizen who is a leader in Hawaii’s Islamic community as the Imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii. His wife is of Syrian descent, and his mother-in-law is a Syrian national living in Syria. No state has more ethnic diversity than Hawaii, as it has more than 250,000 foreign-born residents, and 100,000 of them are non-citizens, and the state asserts that the new executive order will bar these residents from receiving visits from family members or traveling abroad and being able to return.

The second immigration executive order was signed [JURIST report] into law earlier this week, only one day before Hawaii’s lawsuit was filed. Last week the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied [JURIST report] a request by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to stay an appeal on Trump’s previous controversial immigration executive order. The DOJ requested [JURIST reports] a hold on the court proceedings until Trump issued a new order. Last month the appeals court upheld [JURIST report] a lower court decision issuing a stay on the executive order pending further legal proceedings.