ACLU on Trump’s revised travel ban: ‘Litigation lives on’

Immigration and civil rights advocates are gearing up for round two in the fight against President Trump’s travel ban.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said it’s working with the National Immigration Law Center on next steps following the revised immigration order Trump signed on Monday.

“We’re all taking the next few days to closely study this revised Muslim ban,” said Joanne Lin, ACLU’s senior legislative counsel, at a press conference Tuesday held in response to the new order and organized by United We Dream.

{mosads}“I can assure you the litigation lives on and we will continue to challenge this ban.”

Lin wouldn’t talk specifics but said the groups are prepared to pursue all legal remedies through the courts and elsewhere to make sure the new executive order won’t go into effect in 10 days. 

“If you look at the original ban issued in late January, many judges looked at the ban and all but one soundly rejected the administration’s arguments on a number of points, so we remain confident that this ban will ultimately be set aside in the courts,” she said.  

In the new order, Trump removed Iraq from the list of predominantly Muslim countries from which travel is temporarily banned, struck the provision that banned Syrian refugees indefinitely and exempted current green card holders — changes meant to more easily defend the order in court. A federal judge placed a nationwide hold on the original order shortly after its release, a ruling upheld by a higher court.

Lin called the changes evidence of the ban’s unconstitutionality. 

“Those were capitulations from the Trump administration because they lost so resoundingly in round one of this fight,” she said.

“What we cannot escape is the ample evidence that this president has a hostility towards Muslims, and even though presidential power is strong, there is still a backstop and that is the U.S. Constitution. And the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause will not tolerate this kind of discrimination, and that constitutional prohibition applies to the entire U.S. government, including President Trump.”

Greisa Martinez Rosas, an advocacy director at the United We Dream Network and recipient of the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protects certain undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children from deportation, called on Republicans Tuesday to stand up to Trump.

“This cannot be the state of our country. This cannot be our reality,” she said. “[House] Speaker [Paul] Ryan and [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell have a choice: They demand Donald Trump resist his racist executive orders or continue to tarnish not only themselves, their party, but our country.”

Trump’s new order is set to take effect March 16, at which time the original will be rescinded.