RETREAT

Trump Withdraws Travel Ban Appeal, Will Revise

“Replace it with a new, substantially revised EO.”

The Trump administration has withdrawn its request for an appeal on the suspension of its travel ban, instead opting to revise the executive order. In a Thursday filing, the administration wrote that “In so doing, the president will clear the way for immediately protecting the country rather than pursuing further, potentially time-consuming litigation.” A lower court’s suspension of Trump’s executive order barring travel from seven Muslim-majority countries was most recently upheld by the 9th Circuit’s three-judge panel—a decision which the Trump White House has repeatedly attacked. In its decision, the panel said that the states’ lawsuit against the order raised “serious” allegations that the ban specifically targeted Muslims, and that the Trump camp had not provided any evidence that citizens of the banned countries had committed a terror attack in the United States. “Rather than continuing this litigation, the President intends in the near future to rescind the Order and replace it with a new, substantially revised Executive Order to eliminate what the panel erroneously thought were constitutional concerns,” the administration noted in its filing.