As I mentioned in my post this afternoon, there were several hearings around the country today in lawsuits attempting to block Trump’s revised travel ban from going into effect at midnight tonight. One of those lawsuits has just succeeded: A federal judge in Hawaii just issued a temporary restraining order that blocks the ban from going into effect nationwide.
The judge’s decision was based on his determination that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their lawsuit on “Establishment Clause” grounds, i.e. on the basis of religious discrimination.
As some of the legal experts I cited in my earlier post predicted might happen, the judge took into account Trump’s prior history of anti-Muslim statements to give context to the intent behind the ban. From the judge’s order:
The record before this Court is unique. It includes significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus driving the promulgation of the Executive Order and its related predecessor.
The order then goes on to cite several examples from Trump and members of the Trump team that display the aforementioned “animus.” For example, the judge says, “[t]here is nothing “veiled” about this press release: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shut down of Muslims entering the United States.”
The judge also did not buy the Trump administration argument that they couldn’t possibly be discriminating against Muslims since their ban doesn’t ban all Muslims but only Muslims from a few countries. “The illogic of the Government’s contentions is palpable. The notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed.”
DC Deciphered 