Three US States Challenge Trump’s Revised Travel Ban

Three US states have joined Hawaii in a legal challenge against President Donald Trump's revised travel ban.

Trump signed an executive order placing a 90-day ban on people from six mainly Muslim countries on Monday.

New York maintains the new directive is a ban on Muslims while Washington says it is harmful to the state. Oregon and Massachusetts later also joined.

The ban begins on March 16, with the White House saying it is "very confident" of winning in court. Trump's original order was more expansive, but it was defeated after a legal challenge initially mounted by Washington and Minnesota.

The revised ban bars new visas for people from: Somalia, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Yemen. It also temporarily blocks all refugees. The previous order, which Trump signed in January, was blocked in federal courts and sparked mass protests as well as confusion at airports.

But critics maintain the revised travel ban discriminates against Muslims.

Oregon officials argue that the order hurts residents, employers, universities, the health care system and economy. Washington State believes the order has "the same illegal motivations as the original" and harms residents, although fewer than the first ban.

Hawaii argued it would harm its Muslim population, tourism and foreign students.

"President Trump's latest executive order is a Muslim ban by another name, imposing policies and protocols that once again violate the Equal Protection Clause and Establishment Clause of the United State Constitution," said New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman.

The ban has also drawn criticism from many outside the States, including UN World Tourism Organization Secretary-General Taleb Rifai.

Addressing the world’s largest travel trade fair in Berlin last week, Rifai joined a chorus of criticism directed at Trump’s travel executive order, calling it an “ill-conceived” action that will lead not to enhanced security but increased tension.

"Promoting safe travel does not mean stigmatizing, oppressing or excluding communities and minorities, by building walls or banning people from travelling, which is bending to what terrorists want–to end a free world,” Rifai was quoted as saying by CSN News.