By Bill Parry
State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, leading a coalition of 17 attorneys general around the nation, filed a new amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court last Friday opposing President Donald Trump’s third travel ban. The brief supports Hawaii’s case against the Trump administration.
In this third challenge, the district court entered a nationwide preliminary injunction that prohibits enforcement of Trump’s indefinite ban on entry into the United States from six overwhelmingly Muslim countries: Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen and Chad. North Korea and Venezuela are also on the list.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the injunction, which protects foreign nationals with a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.
“Since day one, our coalition of attorneys general has been on the front lines of the fight against this unconstitutional, unlawful, and un-American,” Schneiderman said. “President Trump’s discriminatory ban both hurts the families caught up in the chaos of his draconian policies and undermines our state’s residents, institutions, businesses, and economies. We’ll continue to act to protect our residents and our states.”
In addition to New York, the brief was signed by California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia.
“All of amici states benefit from immigration, tourism, and international travel by students, academics, skilled professionals, and business people. The disputed provisions of the (Trump) Proclamation– like the previous bans — significantly disrupt the ability of our public universities to recruit and retain students and faculty, impairing academic staffing and research, and causing the loss of tuition and tax revenues, among other costs,” the amicus brief contends. “In addition, the ban has made it more difficult for us to effectuate our own constitutional and statutory policies of religious tolerance and nondiscrimination.”
The brief, like previous ones filed by the same coalition, details the numerous grave and irreparable harms the states have continued to face as a result of the Trump administration’s travel bans, and which could very well now be permanent due to the indefinite nature of this third ban. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the Trump administrations travel ban beginning April 25.
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparr
