Washington state exploring options to fight Trump's travel ban

Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown said his office is taking a careful look at the Trump administration’s new travel ban and considering whether the state has a legal basis to challenge it.

“We know that this order will affect so many families in Washington,” Brown said at a press conference Tuesday. “This ban sweeps up medical patients, students, and families and people fleeing persecution. Those people are not [a] national security risk.”

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The ban took effect Monday, barring people from 12 countries from entering the U.S. and adding partial restrictions for seven other countries.

Brown said his office is “actively looking at ways to challenge this ban, but it will be difficult.” He referred to a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld a travel ban during President Donald Trump’s first administration. It initially targeted seven majority-Muslim countries before a series of legal challenges led to some revisions.

“The court has gotten increasingly hostile to challenges like the one that may be necessary here, because the Supreme Court has, frankly, gotten worse since 2017,” Brown said.

Gov. Bob Ferguson said his office is closely working with the AG’s office and other organizations to monitor how the ban affects Washington residents from the targeted countries who may face new barriers to entering or reentering the U.S. So far, just one day in, responses have been mostly muted at airports and border entry points, in contrast to chaos that erupted at various airports when the first travel ban in 2017 left many foreign travelers in limbo.

Trump said the ban is necessary for national security.

According to his administration, some of the countries on the list need to improve their vetting processes and communication about security concerns. The executive order also says some countries are on the list because they’ve previously refused deportations.

Hamdi Mohamed is a commissioner for the Port of Seattle, which is tasked with managing Seattle’s international entry points, like Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where the impacts will be felt most. Mohamed said the commission is calling for more transparency in how federal officials enforce these bans at the airport. But it’ll also have an impact within communities living in the U.S., she said. That includes first- and second-generation immigrants.

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In addition to her work at the Port of Seattle, Mohamed is also the director of the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs for the City of Seattle. She is from Somalia, which was among the countries targeted during Trump’s last term. The current travel restrictions affect predominantly African and Muslim countries, including Somalia.

“[The travel ban] deepens mistrust. It sends a message that some communities will always be treated with suspicion, regardless of how long they've called the United States home or how much they've contributed,” she said.

Port authorities expect people from countries on the banned or restricted list will be stopped before they get on a plane to the U.S., but it’s still unclear how that will actually play out in the coming days.

Late last month, Port commissioners also raised their concerns about people who had been held at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility at the airport for an extended period of time. People are only supposed to be held there for a maximum of 72 hours, according to a joint statement commissioners that cited federal standards. Prolonged detention without appropriate process, they said, undermines public trust.

Malou Chávez, the executive director for the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said she’s especially concerned about people who have been given asylum in the U.S. and are now trying to get their families here from banned countries. Part of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project’s work includes family reunification efforts for people from some of those countries, like Afghanistan.

“It's just going to lead to further suffering of our communities. It also sends a clear message of who is welcome and who is unwanted in this country,” she said.

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Chávez said her organization is working with people who have been waiting overseas and have been given federal authorization to travel here. Now, it’s unclear if they’ll face additional hurdles when they attempt to come to the U.S.

For the Washington Attorney General’s Office, the legal fight ahead is only a part of the equation.

Speaking among a crowd of immigrants and their advocates, Brown said there are other ways to address what he calls “dictatorial” and “fascist” actions by the Trump administration against immigrants.

“We need to use our love and our character as well in this moment,” Brown said. “Because it's going to take all of these things, pulling together to reject the hate that we are seeing from Donald Trump, to reject the lawlessness that we are seeing from Donald Trump, and to reaffirm that the people in this country deserve to be here, and they add value to our state and to our entire nation.”