New Immigration Order as ‘Unconstitutional’ as the First, Says Washington State

President Donald Trump’s second immigration executive order (see 1703060043) keeps “key provisions” from the first that the courts previously “enjoined” as being unlawful, so the second order should be barred from taking effect March 16 as the administration wants it to, the state of Washington argued Thursday in court documents (in Pacer). Though the terms in the second order “differ slightly from their original incarnations, the differences do not remove them from the ambit of this Court’s injunction,” the state told U.S. District Court in Seattle, which granted Washington and Minnesota a temporary restraining order (TRO) Feb. 3 that prevented the first order from being enforced. Tech groups sided in court with the two states. Though the ban in the second order, unlike in the first, won’t apply to green-card holders, visa holders and refugees living in the U.S., “it bars entry for virtually all other aliens from the listed countries,” Washington said. When a court "enjoins a defendant from implementing policies,” as U.S. District Judge James Robart did when he issued his TRO, “the defendant cannot evade that injunction simply by reissuing the same basic policies in a new form,” the state said. “Courts do not issue injunctive relief in a game of whack-a-mole, forced to start anew at a defendant’s whim.” Administration lawyers didn’t comment Friday.