Hawaii urges Supreme Court to keep block on Trump travel ban

Hawaii’s Attorney General this morning filed a memorandum in the U.S. Supreme Court against President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting six Muslim-majority countries.

The memorandum says that if Trump’s “unconstitutional order is implemented, our framers’ greatest fears for this nation will be realized.”

Attorney General Doug Chin filed the memorandum opposing the Trump Administration’s request to stay an injunction in the case of Hawaii v. Trump regarding Trump’s so-called travel ban.

Hawaii’s memorandum filed with the U.S. Supreme Court states:

“Our foundational text, the First Amendment, bars the government from making a citizen’s status in the political community dependent on his faith. The president unquestionably violates that command when he issues an order that disproportionately burdens Muslim-Americans, while denigrating the Muslim faith and making it abundantly clear that the order’s harmful effect on Muslims is far from incidental. To date, the injunction has prevented that constitutional violation. In doing so, it has safeguarded religious liberty and demonstrated the strength of our Constitution and the courts that protect it. Nonetheless, the government now asks this court to stay the injunction. … (The) long-term consequences (of a stay) would be even more significant. As soon as the unconstitutional order is implemented, our framers’ greatest fears for this nation will be realized; the order will serve as an ominous ‘Beacon on our Coast, warning’ the ‘persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion’ that they must ‘seek some other haven.’”