A US
district judge in Virginia has ruled that President Donald Trump's executive
order barring entry from seven countries is unconstitutional.
Judge Leonie
Brinkema issued a preliminary injunction, asserting that the campaign vow to
institute a "Muslim ban" violated the First Amendment.
The Monday
ruling is significant, as the judge ruled that religious bias is at the heart
of Mr Trump's ban.
Judges
elsewhere have already upheld an order stopping implementation.
The First
Amendment prohibits the government from establishing laws that favour one
religion over another.
Who is
affected by the travel ban?
What did the
California court rule?
Legal limbo
in a Virginia airport
Earlier this
month an appeals court upheld a lower court's decision to bar the federal
government from beginning implementation of the ban, which temporarily
prohibits travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, and indefinitely
suspends the refugee admissions programme.
In her
22-page ruling, the Virginia judge cited several of Mr Trump's campaign
statements including those in which he promised to create a "Muslim
ban" if he were elected president.
"The
president himself acknowledged the conceptual link between a Muslim ban and the
EO (executive order)," Judge Brinkema wrote.
She also
criticised the president's statements that persecuted Christians may be
permitted entry despite the ban, which she said amounts to a religious test.
She also
referenced a Fox News interview in which former New York City Mayor Rudy
Giuliani, a Trump adviser, said that the president wants a "Muslim
ban" and that he had been instructed by Mr Trump to put together a
commission to determine "the right way to do it legally".
Judge
Brinkema sharply criticised lawyers for the justice department, who she said
did not present any evidence except for the president's executive order.
"Maximum
power does not mean absolute power," she wrote. "Every presidential
action must still comply with the limits set" by the separation of powers
laid out in the US Constitution.
Virginia
Attorney General Mark Herring, who argued the case against the ban, praised the
judge's decision saying "the overwhelming evidence shows that this ban was
conceived in religious bigotry".
The
temporary injunction applies only to residents of Virginia and faculties of
state universities who may have been affected by the new travel restrictions.
The case was
brought to the court in Alexandria, Virginia, on behalf of two Yemeni brothers
who were turned away from the US shortly after arriving at Dulles International
Airport.
The Yemeni
men have since been allowed to enter the United States.
Mr Trump has
said that he is considering rewriting the executive order, rather than bring
the case to the Supreme Court.
(BBC)
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