The U.S. government Friday filed notice to appeal a federal court ruling that foiled President Donald Trump’s travel ban.
But it wasn’t in Hawaii.
While the Trump administration moved to a higher court the Maryland case that blocked a portion of the immigration ban, the Hawaii ruling that established a nationwide temporary restraining order remained unchallenged.
However, press secretary Sean Spicer told White House reporters Friday that the Department of Justice would indeed appeal the Hawaii ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after first seeking clarification from the court.
U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson on Wednesday granted Hawaii’s request to block Trump’s revised travel ban a day before it was scheduled to go into effect.
The ruling, issued following a hearing in Honolulu, was the first to derail the president’s second order, which was modified in an attempt to make it more legally acceptable after a 9th Circuit panel refused to overturn a Washington state judge’s ruling against it.
The modified order kept the 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. by citizens of Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Iran, Syria and Libya but removed Iraq and was restricted to only new visa applicants. It also removed an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees.
On the same day the Hawaii ruling came down, U.S. District Judge Theodore
Chuang in Maryland issued an emergency halt to the order’s 90-day ban.
On Friday the U.S. government filed court papers notifying the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, covering Maryland, that it intends to formally appeal.
As for Hawaii, Spicer said the timing of the appeal and the strategy going forward will be handled by the Justice Department.
“The department is exploring all available options to vigorously defend this executive order,” he said.
Joshua Wisch, special assistant to state Attorney General Doug Chin, said the department doesn’t know what the U.S. government is planning as far as a challenge is concerned.
“All we can say is that as long as the TRO remains in place, the nationwide injunction remains in place,” Wisch said in an email.
Asked about what the state is doing to prepare for an appeal or whether there is a strategy going forward, Wisch declined to say much of anything.
“We don’t have any new information to share about this,” he said.