Trump Travel Ban Faces Lawsuit From ACLU, Maryland Refugee Group

SILVER SPRING, MD — A Maryland group that works to resettle refugees worldwide joined with the American Civil Liberties Union Tuesday to file a federal lawsuit in an effort to strike down President Donald Trump's controversial executive order, which calls for a temporary halt of all refugee activity and all entry into the country for residents of seven Muslim-majority countries.

Legal actions have allowed many people with green cards and visas to enter the United States after Trump initially signed his order Jan. 27. The order induced chaos at airports across the country and world, as immigration officials were unclear exactly how to enforce the ban and what it meant. Refugees and citizens from prohibited countries who were in midair were detained once they arrived in the United States and, in some cases, sent back to their home countries.

Federal judges in Brooklyn and Boston blocked the order in those states, then a federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked the order nationwide at the request of the Washington and Minnesota attorneys general.

The lawsuit filed in Maryland claims the president's executive order violates the Constitution and was "designed to target and discriminate against Muslims. … Rarely in American history has governmental intent to discriminate against a particular faith and its adherents been so plain," court documents say.

Attorneys argue that the executive order violates two constitutional protections: the guarantee that the government will not establish, favor, discriminate against, or condemn any religion, and the guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Trump administration include the ACLU, the Urban Justice Center of New York and HIAS, the world’s oldest refugee resettlement agency. HIAS was founded in 1881 to assist Jews fleeing persecution in Russia and Eastern Europe, is based in Silver Spring, Maryland, and now serves refugees worldwide. Individuals represented by the lawsuit include naturalized U.S. citizens and permanent residents who now live legally in Potomac, Chevy Chase and three Maryland counties; the plaintiffs came to the U.S. from Iran or Iraq and will not be able to travel overseas to visit family, or have them come to this country.

The lawsuit asks the federal court to strike down the order on these grounds:

• The order violates the Establishment Clause by singling out Muslims for disfavored treatment and granting special preferences to non-Muslims. It is neither justified by, nor closely fitted to, any compelling governmental interest.
• The order violates the Fifth Amendment — which says “No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” — by discriminating on the basis of religion and national origin.
• Violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which says “no person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence.”
• Imposes a special disability on the basis of religious views or religious status, by denying Muslims their benefits based on their own or their family members’ immigration status, in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
• Limits the number of refugees who may be admitted in fiscal year 2017 to 50,000, despite an earlier proclamation setting a limit of 110,000, in violation of the Refugee Act.
• Takes actions that are arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

»See the full text of the ACLU lawsuit vs. President Donald Trump below

More than 100 American tech companies, along with former Secretaries of State John Kerry and Madeline Albright, have joined the fight in support of blocking the order.

Department of Justice attorneys filed their argument Monday night for why the executive order should remain in place, arguing that the nation's security was at stake.

"Relying on his express statutory authority to suspend entry of any class of aliens to protect the interest, the President has directed a temporary suspension of entries through the refugee program and from countries that have a previously identified link to an increased risk of terrorist activity," the response said.

"The purpose of that temporary suspension is to permit an orderly review and revision of screening procedures to ensure that adequate standards are in place to protect against terrorist attacks."

»Patch file photo of President Donald Trump