Thomas Phippen – Reporter on 10/18/2017
A Maryland judge has issued a ruling blocking part of the third version of President Donald Trump’s travel ban, the second block to this latest draft.
U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang issued a partial injunction on the ban Tuesday evening in a case brought by the International Refugee Assistance Project, which sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) for seeking travel restrictions on citizens of eight countries.
Chuang’s partial injunction stops the government from applying the travel ban to travelers who have a “bona fide” reason for visiting the U.S. Individuals “lacking a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States” would still be banned from entry into the U.S. under Chuang’s injunction.
The government has not “shown that national security cannot be maintained without an unprecedented eight-country travel ban,” Chuang wrote in his 91-page opinion on the ruling.
Chuang ruled that the plaintiffs in the case “have established that they are likely to succeed on the merits” of their suit and “are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of injunctive relief” against the DOJ’s order.
The latest version of the travel ban, announced last month, places restrictions on travelers from six Muslim countries, including Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, as well as North Korea and some officials from Venezuela. Chuang’s injunction does not apply to people traveling from Venezuela or North Korea.
His injunction follows U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson’s temporary restraining order against the ban earlier Tuesday, ruling on a separate case brought by the State of Hawaii and the Muslim Association of Hawaii.
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