The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals hasn’t yet ruled on Donald Trump’s Muslim ban, but the legal scene isn’t quiet while we wait for that decision. There are around 20 other lawsuits challenging the ban in different courts, taking a wide range of approaches:
“People wanted to protect their clients,” [ACLU attorney Lee] Gelernt said. “We could not, especially in the early stages, guarantee we would get nationwide relief or that there wouldn’t be gaps, so we encouraged and helped coordinate other lawsuits. I don’t think at this point anyone would tell you you can fit all the cases together like a puzzle. Cases are being filed very, very quickly and there is overlap in some of the cases.”
Immigrant rights lawyers said they’re hopeful the 9th Circuit will leave in place the broad national order the states of Washington and Minnesota obtained blocking Trump’s directive, but the other suits could help buttress that effort if the appeals court or the Supreme Court lifts or curtails Judge James Robart’s order by limiting to whom it applies or perhaps where it applies.
“The Washington order could get reversed,” Gelernt said. “No one can be sure until the administration changes the executive order that it won’t again be applied. There’s been no definitive ruling, so I don’t think that any one particular case settles it for everyone.”
If there isn’t one decision that suspends Trump’s ban altogether, a patchwork of cases addressing different aspects of it could provide substantial, if incomplete or overlapping, protections. A suit in Seattle addresses people with work or student visas. One in Greenbelt, Maryland, addresses refugees. And new lawsuits continue to be filed, with one filed Wednesday in Washington, D.C., that asks for an order to “promptly reissue any and all physically cancelled visas.”
Whatever the 9th Circuit decides, this issue will continue to be fought in courts around the country unless and until Trump changes his executive order or the Supreme Court makes a final decision.