United States President Donald Trump on Thursday said that he will issue a new version of his controversial travel ban, which prohibits refugees and people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering America. The ban has been temporarily blocked by the federal courts in the country.
Donald Trump says 'see you in court' after US appeals court judges uphold travel ban suspension
Trump, while addressing a news conference, blasted the courts for suspending his executive order of the ban. "We had a bad court, got a bad decision," Trump said, referring to the judicial actions that temporarily stayed the immigration ban issued on January 27. The Trump administration had asked for a pause in the proceedings by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which had sided with a lower court in halting Trump's immigration ban.
The US president's travel ban, which resulted in country-wide protests, applies to migrants, refugees and US legal residents — Green Card holders — from Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Libya and Yemen. There is an indefinite ban on the arrival of Syrian refugees. Trump cited "terrorism concerns" as the reason behind the order.
Trump said that the new order, which will be shortly issued, will address the issues raised by the court, however, he added that the court had taken a "bad decision" in suspending the order.
"The new order is going to be very much tailored to what I consider to be a very bad decision," Trump said.
A Seattle federal judge on Wednesday ordered both Washington state and the Justice Department to submit their initial plans for discovery in the case by next month. The Washington state had filed a lawsuit in court soon after Trump's controversial ban asking it to be permanently removed, the Justice Department, however, is representing the Trump administration in defending the executive order issued by Trump. The Justice Department last week had said that it opposes discovery.
Washington state attorney general Bob Ferguson reportedly said that he wants to depose Trump officials about the motives of their travel ban, which could assist the court in deciding whether the ban violates constitutional protections for religion or not.
"Today's court filing by the federal government recognises the obvious - the president's current executive order violates the Constitution," Ferguson said, in a statement. "President Trump could have sought review of this flawed order in the Supreme Court but declined to face yet another defeat," Reuters reported.
Trump defended his executive orders saying that "everything would've been perfect," of the administration had decided to spend a month crafting the order.
"The problem is we would've wasted a lot of time, and maybe a lot of lives because a lot of bad people would've come into our country," he added.
