Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson files new complaint, seeks travel-ban hearings
Mar 13, 2017, 9:44 AM
Saying the president is not above the law, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed an amended complaint in his lawsuit challenging President Trump’s travel ban, saying Trump’s order is illegal and unconstitutional. Ferguson is also asking that a motion to enforce the injunction he obtained in Seattle last month, which blocked the president’s original immigration Executive Order nationwide, be expanded to include this new one.
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In Ferguson’s Motion to Enforce filed on Monday, the AG asks U.S. District Court Judge James Robart, who granted the Feb. 3 injunction, to enforce it against President Trump’s renewed travel ban. Ferguson also requests that the court hold a hearing on the matter on Tuesday.
“No one is above the law, not even the President — and I will hold him accountable to the Constitution,” Ferguson said in a press release. “Cutting some illegal aspects of President Trump’s original travel ban does not cure his affront to our Constitution.”
Ferguson also announced a multistate coalition working in support of his lawsuit, counting California as the most recent partner.
Judge Robart granted Oregon’s motion to intervene on March 8. Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and now California also asked the court for permission to join the lawsuit. Those requests are currently pending.
On Jan. 30, Washington filed the first lawsuit broadly challenging the constitutionality of the Trump Administration’s move to restrict immigration from several majority-Muslim nations and the resettlement of refugees.
