Travel-ban fight shifts to Virginia after Trump appeals loss

NEW YORK – A federal judge in Virginia plans to rule as soon as possible on extending a block on President Donald Trump’s ban on travel to the U.S. by residents of seven majority-Muslim countries.

While Trump lost Thursday before a California federal appeals panel in a different case, the U.S. Supreme Court will likely have the final say on whether the immigration policy is legal. The Virginia case is one of a handful with the potential to more permanently keep the administration’s order on hold.

While a single court can block Trump for now, immigration advocates are pushing for court-ordered delays in several cases, as they work to keep the door open for travelers, residents and refugees for as long as possible. The government will keep trying to defeat court-ordered interruptions and make its enhanced border-security policies the law of the land as soon as possible. “SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!” Trump tweeted Thursday.

What’s the Virginia case about?

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Virginia claims Trump is barring people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen to deliver on the “Muslim ban” he called for during his presidential campaign. The state is asking U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who was appointed to the court by President Bill Clinton, to enter a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the ban throughout the U.S. while she considers a more permanent ruling.

After a hearing Friday in Alexandria, Va., Brinkema said her decision can’t be “written overnight,” but that she’d issue it as soon as possible. She noted the temporary ban issued by a Seattle federal judge applies nationwide.

A win for Virginia would bolster the delay ordered by a federal judge in Seattle and multiply the problems for the Trump administration in trying to put the travel ban in place. A victory by the government could create a split with Thursday’s ruling and hasten review by the Supreme Court. In either event, the losing party is likely to appeal.

How does this case relate to other cases around the nation?

Immigration advocates, states and individual visa-holders have filed more than 10 suits in federal courts challenging the ban. Four judges, including Brinkema and judges in Seattle and Brooklyn, New York, entered orders temporarily halting the government from enforcing parts of the order. Appeals-court backing for the Seattle judge’s order that blocks enforcement of the travel ban means it will remain in place while the lower court considers a more-permanent ruling.

The Seattle order is the broadest, effectively blocking enforcement of much of the executive order. Virginia’s request would block enforcement of the section barring travel by citizens of the seven named countries, but doesn’t affect the part of the order blocking refugees from entering the U.S. The Brooklyn order is even narrower, blocking the government from deporting those arriving in the U.S from the seven countries. There are distinctions in how the cases confront Trump’s order.

What does Virginia claim?

The order is “a monumental abuse of executive power” that harms the state’s economy and public universities by barring foreign students, professors, workers and their family members, lawyers for Virginia said in a brief filed with the court. The order violates the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which bars the government from favoring one religion over another, according to the state. And stripping visa-holders and permanent U.S. residents from the seven countries without a hearing violates the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, it claims. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia filed a brief supporting Virginia’s claims. No immigrant from the seven named countries has committed terrorist acts on U.S. soil.

There is “overwhelming evidence that the executive order is simply Trump’s way of following through on a campaign promise to ban Muslims,” Stuart Raphael, Virginia’s solicitor general, told the judge Friday. “If a law is designed to harm a religion or advanced a religion, it is unconstitutional.”

What does the Trump administration say?

Lawyers representing the U.S. claim Virginia isn’t a proper party to sue over a travel ban. Congress gave the president “unreviewable authority to suspend the entry of any class of aliens,” the government said in its brief. Virginia’s claims of damage to its economy and state-run colleges are vague and insufficient to support an order blocking the government from enforcing the immigration laws. The ban doesn’t target Muslims, but is intended to allow the government to institute stricter controls on immigration from countries where “deteriorating conditions” due to “war, strife, disaster and civil unrest increase the likelihood that terrorists will use any means possible to enter the United States,” the U.S. said.

At Friday’s hearing, the government argued that an injunction can’t be justified, because there is no immediate harm to travelers, and that Congress gave the president the authority to regulate which classes of aliens may enter the country. The president may have national security information that his detractors don’t, the U.S. said.

Many of the arguments are the same as in the case decided in California on Thursday. It’s unclear whether the Virginia court will agree with the California court.

The case is Aziz v. Trump, 17-cv-116, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria).

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