The Trump administration is set to appeal a Hawaii federal judge’s order that indefinitely halted key parts of the president’s revised travel ban, which prohibited nationals from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days and halted refugees admissions for 120 days.
“The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the federal district court’s ruling,” the Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement Thursday, according to CNN.
“The President’s executive order fails squarely within his lawful authority in seeking to protect our nation’s security, and the department will continue to defend this executive order in the courts,” the spokesperson added.
{mosads}The announcement follows U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson’s decision Wednesday to convert his temporary restraining order on Trump’s travel ban two weeks ago into an indefinite freeze.
“The court will not crawl into a corner, pull the shutters closed, and pretend it has not seen what it has,” the judge wrote Wednesday, according to CNN.
“The court concludes that, on the record before it, plaintiffs have met their burden of establishing a strong likelihood of success on the merits of their Establishment Clause claim,” he added.
The Trump administration earlier this month also appealed a similar decision by a Maryland judge who halted the implementation of the revised executive order.