US Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump’s new immigration ban

TIL Desk/World/Washington-A US federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s new immigration ban, just hours before it was scheduled to be enforced on Thursday, a media report said. In the Honolulu federal court, Judge Derrick Watson heard arguments on the state of Hawaii’s request that a temporary restraining order be issued for the ban, and he ruled in favour of the motion on Wednesday afternoon.

This will prevent Trump’s executive order from going into effect. Several states are making efforts to halt the immigration ban, and on Wednesday presentations were made in federal courts in Hawaii, Maryland and Washington state as to why it should not be implemented. Hawaii said that the order discriminates on the basis of nationality and would make it impossible for state residents to be visited by relatives from the six Muslim-majority countries included in the ban.

The state also argued that the travel ban would hurt the state’s big tourism industry, as well as the ability to attract foreign students and recruit foreign workers. The new immigration ban would suspend for 120 days the US refugee acceptance program and bar for 90 days US entry to citizens from Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Libya, taking the stance that they present a terrorism risk.