Federal judges on Monday peppered a lawyer for President
Donald Trump with questions about whether the administration’s
travel ban discriminates against Muslims, the second time in a week the issue has been in court.
Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, who is defending the travel ban, told a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle that the executive order halting travel from six majority Muslim nations doesn’t say anything about religion.
“This order is aimed at aliens abroad, who themselves don’t have constitutional rights,” Wall said in a hearing broadcast live on C-Span and other news stations.
Advocates for refugees and immigrants rallied outside the federal courthouse in Seattle, some carrying “No Ban, No Wall” signs.
Trump’s executive would suspend the nation’s refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Last week, judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments over whether to affirm a Maryland judge’s decision putting the ban on ice. They focused their questions on whether they could consider Trump’s campaign statements calling for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., with one judge asking if there was anything other than “wilful blindness” that would prevent them from doing so.
On Monday, Wall told the judges that “over time, the president clarified that what he was talking about was Islamic terrorist groups and the countries that sponsor or shelter them.”