Another Appeals Court to Weigh Trump’s Revised Travel Ban

For the second time in a week, the US government lawyers will try to persuade a federal appeals court to reinstate US President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban and once again, they can expect plenty of questions on Monday about whether the ban was designed to discriminate against Muslims.

A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled arguments in Seattle over Hawaii’s lawsuit challenging the travel ban that would suspend the nation’s refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, ABC reported.

Last week, judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments over whether to affirm a Maryland judge’s decision putting the ban on ice. They peppered Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall with questions about whether they could consider Trump’s campaign statements calling for a ban on Muslims entering the US, with one judge asking if there was anything other than “willful blindness” that would prevent them from doing so.

Monday’s arguments mark the second time Trump’s efforts to restrict immigration from certain Muslim-majority nations have reached the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit.

After Trump issued his initial travel ban on a Friday in late January, bringing chaos and protests to airports around the country, a Seattle judge blocked its enforcement nationwide—a decision that was unanimously upheld by a three-judge 9th Circuit panel.

“We are going to take our case as far as it needs to go, including all the way up to the Supreme Court,” President Trump said at a campaign rally in Nashville, shortly after the decision was issued by a federal judge in Hawaii. “We are going to win. We are going to keep our citizens safe, believe me,” Trump said.

The arguments to be heard Monday in Seattle follow US District Court Judge Derrick K. Watson’s March 16 decision that thwarted implementation of the overhauled version of Trump’s controversial policy.