[Breaking news alert, 3:54 a.m.]
The Ninth Circuit Court has denied an immediate emergency motion request for an administrative stay of an injunction to stop the enforcement of President Donald Trump’s nationwide travel ban. The court has asked for both sides to file legal briefs before the court makes a decision.
[Previous story, 1:34 a.m.]
Just after midnight on Sunday the US Justice Department filed an appeal asking to pause the sweeping decision that temporarily halted enforcement of President Donald Trump’s travel ban nationwide, saying in a strongly-worded filing that blocking the travel ban “harms the public” and “second-guesses the President’s national security judgment.”
The legal battle, which now moves up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, surrounds a Friday decision issued by US District Court Judge James Robart, who halted the implementation of several key provisions of Trump’s executive order.
Trump’s policy banned foreign nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US for 90 days, suspended all refugee entry to the US for 120 days and indefinitely suspended entry for Syrian refugees.
The government’s emergency motion sets forth a mutli-pronged attack on Robart’s decision, emphasizing the President’s broad authority in the immigration context.
“(Robart’s ruling) contravenes the considered judgment of Congress that the President should have the unreviewable authority to suspend the admission of any class of aliens,” the Justice Department wrote in its filing.
DOJ further argues that the parties who filed the lawsuit — the attorneys general of Washington state and Minnesota — lack the ability to sue in federal court because their alleged harms are too “speculative.”
The three judges on the Ninth Circuit who will likely hear the case — assuming no one has to step aside over any conflicts — are: Judge William Canby, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter; Richard Clifton, who was appointed by George W. Bush; and Michelle Friedland, a President Barack Obama appointee.
Robart, a Bush appointee sitting in the Western District of Washington, ruled Friday that the states that filed the lawsuit, Washington and Minnesota, “have met their burden of demonstrating that they face immediate and irreparable injury as a result of the signing and implementation of the executive order.”
Robart went on to explain that Trump’s executive order adversely affects “residents in areas of employment, education, business, family relations, and freedom to travel.”
When the President was asked at a gala in Florida whether he was confident his administration would prevail in the appeal, Trump replied, “We’ll win. For the safety of the country, we’ll win.”
On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security announced it had suspended “any and all” actions to implement the immigration order and would resume standard inspections of travelers, as it did prior to the signing of the travel ban.
This story has been updated to add details about the appeals process.