WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court has dealt another blow to President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban targeting six Muslim-majority countries.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a lower court ruling that blocked the travel ban. It’s the first appeals court to rule on the revised travel ban. Trump rewrote the ban after several legal defeats. His administration will likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The appeals court decision blocks the administration from suspending new visas for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
A federal judge in Hawaii has also halted that provision and the freeze on the U.S. refugee program. President Trump’s administration is fighting that decision in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Omar Jadwat is the director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and argued the case before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. He said Thursday that the ban is unconstitutional. Jadwat says “the Constitution’s prohibition on actions disfavoring or condemning any religion is a fundamental protection for all of us.”
The chief judge of the circuit, Roger L. Gregory, wrote in the ruling that the administration’s national security interest appear to be a secondary justification “for an executive action rooted in religious animus and intended to bar Muslims from this country.”
