Hawaii responds to Trump administration in travel ban case

Saying the intervention by the U.S. District Court is urgently needed, the state of Hawaii today filed its reply in response to the Trump administration’s arguments regarding the scope of its partial travel and refugee bans allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A previous request by the state to U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson to clarify the scope of the partial bans in light of the Supreme Court’s decision was rejected Thursday.

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals the next day offered up the possibility that the federal District Court could indeed consider a request for an injunction, prompting Hawaii to file a new motion that evening with Watson.

Hawaii’s reply argues that the government is too narrowly interpreting the high court’s directive that any alien with a “bona fide relationship” should be allowed into the country.

The government, it says, has spent two weeks “carrying out its unconstitutional order against the vulnerable and the weak,” justifying its conduct on grounds of national security.

The filing says the government has excluded, among others, a Ukrainian granddaughter trying to reunite with her 93-year-old grandmother, a refugee stranded in Malawi while his uncle waits for him here and lots of people promised housing and resettlement by a refugee organization.

“The government claims these individuals have no ties to the United States and their exclusion burdens no one. That position is as wrong as it is cruel, and it makes a mockery of the Supreme Court’s directive that any alien with a ‘bona fide relationship’ to this country cannot be denied entry,” the document says.

Reply in Support of Motion by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd