WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s second travel ban has also been challenged, in a court in Hawaii where the state argued that the order was a discrimination against Muslims and will disrupt families.

The first order, issued on Jan 27, was stayed by a court in the State of Washington, forcing Trump issue the second order on Monday. The new order is much detailed and tries to answer some of the problems identified in the first order.

Hawaii became the first state to sue over President Trump’s revised travel ban, in a federal court in Honolulu.

In the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday afternoon, the state of Hawaii argued “the executive order conjures up the memory of the Chinese Exclusion Acts and the imposition of martial law and Japanese internment after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.”

Hawaii’s Attorney General Douglas Chin said that Hawaii found this order particularly disturbing because it’s a state has “always been non-discriminatory in both its history and constitution.”

He Chin pointed out that 20 per cent of the people in Hawaii were foreign-born, 100,000 were non-citizens and 20 per cent of the labour force was foreign-born too.

Hawaii had challenged Trump’s initial travel ban too, but that lawsuit was put on hold while other cases played out across the United States. Hawaii told the court it would file an amended lawsuit to cover the new ban, which becomes effective on March 16.

Trump’s second order bars new visas for people from Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Libya and temporarily halts the US refugee programme. The ban does not apply to persons with green cards or travellers who obtained visas before or on Jan 27.

Hawaii said it decided to challenge the second order to protect its residents, businesses and schools, as well as its “sovereignty against illegal actions of President Donald J. Trump and the federal government.”

Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2017