With stay of Trump border order, state AGs plot next move

Remember when Donald Trump bragged, “We’re gonna win, and we’re gonna win like you’ve never seen before”? That claim was effectively destroyed by last night’s emergency ruling stayed Trump’s draconian order blocking immigrants – even those who had a visa – from entering the US by a Brooklyn judge. And the fight against Trump’s executive order has just begun:

A group of state attorneys general are discussing whether to file their own court challenge against President Donald Trump’s order to restrict people from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the United States, officials in three states told Reuters.

Democrat attorneys general are expected to be a source of fierce resistance to Trump, much as Republican AGs opposed former President Barack Obama. A lawsuit brought by states would heighten the legal stakes surrounding the president’s executive order, signed late on Friday, as courtroom challenges to the ban have so far mostly been filed by individuals.

Officials in the offices of attorneys general in Pennsylvania, Washington and Hawaii said on Saturday they were evaluating what specific claims could be filed, and in which court.

“We do believe the executive order is unconstitutional,” Hawaii attorney general Douglas Chin told Reuters on Saturday. He declined to give further detail.

The states could decide not to file, and it is unclear how many states would ultimately sign on for such an effort.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.