Hawaii Judge Halts Trump’s Travel Ban Nationwide

Judge Derrick Watson issues a restraining order just hours before the president’s new executive order would have taken effect.

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By Rui Kaneya

In a case of legal deja vu, President Donald Trump’s new executive order on immigration suffered a major setback Wednesday, when a federal judge in Honolulu issued a temporary restraining order to keep the travel ban from taking effect as scheduled at 6:01 p.m. Hawaii time.

Following a hearing Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson ruled that Hawaii “met their burden of establishing a strong likelihood of success on the merits of” its lawsuit.

Watson’s ruling — nationwide in scope — was a resounding victory for Hawaii, which mounted a legal challenge last week to overturn the newly revised travel ban on grounds that it unconstitutionally targets Muslims and discriminates based on national origin.

At the hearing, held in a packed courtroom in downtown Honolulu, the Trump administration struggled to convince Watson that he should allow the travel ban to take effect as scheduled.

Watson appeared unconvinced by acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall’s argument that past statements by Trump and aides shouldn’t be considered when assessing whether the new order was motivated by “religious animus.”

Watson pointedly asked: “How do we assess that the neutrality (of the new order’s text) isn’t a subterfuge in some way?”

Wednesday’s hearing came on a day that attorneys from two other states were in federal courts challenging the new order, which suspends refugee resettlements and temporarily halts the issuance of new visas to citizens of six Muslim-majority countries.

Six hours before Watson’s hearing, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Greenbelt, Maryland, heard oral arguments on a lawsuit brought by refugee aid groups but declined to issue a ruling from the bench.

Chuang said his ruling will come “hopefully today” but indicated that he’ll likely issue a narrow ruling that isn’t nationwide in scope.

Starting at 11 a.m. Hawaii time, another judge in Seattle began holding a hearing on a similar lawsuit brought by four Washington residents who are concerned that their relatives in the banned countries could be disrupted by Trump’s new ban.

That hearing was before U.S. District Judge James Robart, who squelched Trump’s first travel ban attempt with a temporary restraining order Feb. 3. That decision was upheld by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Feb. 9.

This is a developing story. Watch Civil Beat for updates.

You can read Watson’s ruling here:

Hawaii Judge Watson’s Motion To Stop Trump’s Travel Ban from Civil Beat