Trump to appeal judge’s ruling against travel ban

Trump to appeal judge’s ruling against travel ban
By Lydia Wheeler - 03-17-17 16:16 PM EDT

The Trump administration filed papers Friday notifying a federal court in Maryland that it plans to appeal an order blocking his revised travel ban.

District judges in Hawaii and Maryland issued separate orders this week blocking the executive order that temporarily bans nationals from six majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S. hours before it was set to take effect.

President Trump's first order was blocked last month by a federal judge in Washington state. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reinstate the ban and then refused this week to rehear Trump's case with its full panel of judges.

Because Trump is challenging the Maryland judge's decision, the next battle is in the Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If he had challenged the Hawaii judge's ruling, it would have gone to the 9th Circuit.

At a rally in Nashville, Tenn., on Wednesday, Trump called the revised order a "watered-down version" of the first one.

"The order he blocked was a watered-down version of the first order that was also blocked by another judge and should have never been blocked to start with," he said.

"It should have never been blocked to start with. This new order was tailored to the dictates to the 9th Circuit's, in my opinion, flawed ruling."

In revising the order, the administration dropped Iraq from the list of banned nations, removed language that gave preference to religious minorities when the refugee program resumes, exempted legal U.S. residents and certain visa holders and indefinitely stopped the U.S. from admitting Syrian refugees. The order still bars refugee resettlement in the U.S. for 120 days.

- Updated at 4:48 p.m.