This morning there was another ruling on Trump’s travel ban: a federal judge in Maryland issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against Trump’s travel ban.
The judge’s reasoning here was similar to the judge’s in Hawaii in that he felt Trump’s past statements about Muslims were relevant to the record.
The Maryland judge said that Trump’s travel ban was “the realization of the long-envisioned Muslim ban.” He then went on to cite examples of specific statements about Muslims made by both Trump and members of Trump’s team (Stephen Miller and Rudy Giuliani). The judge said:
These statements, which include explicit, direct statements of President Trump’s animus toward Muslims and intention to impose a ban on Muslims entering the United States, present a convincing case that the first executive order was issued to accomplish, as nearly as possible, President Trump’s promised Muslim ban.
Here again is last night’s post about the Hawaii ruling:
As I mentioned in my post this [Wednesday] 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 