Virginia Federal Court OK's Trump's Second Travel Ban EO

While federal district courts in Hawaii and Maryland have issued nationwide injunctions barring enforcement of President Trump's second travel ban Executive Order finding that it violates the Establishment Clause, a Virginia federal district court has now reached an opposite conclusion.  In Sarsour v. Trump, (ED VA, Marc 24, 2017), the court said in part:

Given the revisions in EO-2, the question is now whether the President's past statements continue to fatally infect what is facially a lawful exercise of presidential authority. In that regard, the Supreme Court has held that "past actions [do not] forever taint any effort on [the government's] part to deal with the subject matter. . . ." This Court is no longer faced with a facially discriminatory order coupled with contemporaneous statements suggesting discriminatory intent. And while the President and his advisors have continued to make statements following the issuance of EO-1 that have characterized or anticipated the nature of EO-2, the Court cannot conclude for the purposes of the Motion that these statements, together with the President's past statements, have effectively disqualified him from exercising his lawful presidential authority under Section 1182(f). In other words, the substantive revisions reflected in EO-2 have reduced the probative value of the President's statements to the point that it is no longer likely that Plaintiffs can succeed on their claim that the predominate purpose of EO-2 is to discriminate against Muslims based on their religion and that EO-2 is a pretext or a sham for that purpose.

The Hill reports on the decision.