Another Appeals Court to Weigh Trump's Revised Travel Ban

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Attorneys from the US Justice Department will again come before a federal appeals court to try to salvage President Donald Trump's order banning travel from six mostly Muslim nations, after a judge said it appeared to be discriminatory.

Lawyers for the Trump administration have asked the 9th Circuit to permit enforcement of the presidential order, which the court is considering on an expedited schedule. An executive order issued by President Franklin Roosevelt that led to the internment of 110,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II similarly was couched as a necessity for national security and made no reference to residents of Japanese heritage, Paez noted.

The second order was meant to overcome the legal problems posed by the original ban, but was also suspended by judges before it could go into effect on March 16.

Judge Richard Paez called some of Trump's statements about Muslims 'profound, ' noting 'it is a little bit concerning, though, that those statements take place during the midst of a highly contentious campaign'.

Wall responded that Trump's order is nothing like that, and if it were, he wouldn't be defending it before the court.

On Monday a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle heard Hawaii's lawsuit challenging the ban, which would suspend the nation's refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Dozens of advocates for refugees and immigrants rallied outside the federal courthouse in Seattle, some carrying "No Ban, No Wall" signs.

Last week, judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments over whether to affirm a Maryland judge's decision putting the ban on ice.

Katyal, when it was his turn to speak, said Wall "could not actually point to any disavowal" because "there is no such statement".

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Graham said under the circumstances he wouldn't be able to support his colleague Sen. The final decree of appointment signed by the President of the United States .

But the judge wondered whether Trump is forever forbidden from adopting an executive order along the lines of his travel ban.

'So I think the question is, what would an objective observer view these statements as and as the district court said, it would view them as an establishment of a disfavored religion, of Islam, ' Katyal said. A ruling has not yet been released.Arguing that the United States needed to tighten national security measures, Trump's attempt to limit travel was one of his first major acts in office.

"This is something new and unusual in which you're saying, 'This whole class of people, some of which are risky, we can bar them all, '" Katyal argued. Speaking before the 9th Circuit judges on Monday, Neal Katyal, who represented Hawaii, also said Trump had repeatedly spoken of a Muslim ban during the campaign and after.

The president then rewrote his executive order, rather than appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and in March, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu blocked the new version from taking effect, citing what he called "significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus" in Trump's campaign statements.

The state of Hawaii and Dr. Ismail Elshikh, the imam of the Muslim Assn. of Hawaii, challenged Trump's order, which was a revision of an earlier, broader ban that the 9th Circuit blocked on due process grounds. "Again, he must be checked".

Trump's attempted travel bans have caused the number of refugees coming into the U.S.to plummet in the last two months, despite his executive orders largely being blocked in the courts.

As a result, the Trump administration went back to the drawing board, drafting a revised executive order in March that provided advance notice to travelers and exempting foreigners with valid visas, admittedly in the hopes of addressing the "judicial concerns" posed by the original order. Whoever loses in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals may likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"There's no guarantee that the 13 4th Circuit judges who heard argument last week will hand down their ruling before the three 9th Circuit judges hearing Monday's argument will", said Steve Vladeck, CNN legal analyst and professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law.

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