Trump Withdraws Appeal of Travel Ban Suspension, To Unveil New Order Soon

Washington: President Donald Trump's administration dropped on Friday its appeal of a court ruling that suspended his travel ban targeting refugees and seven Muslim countries and said it would replace the measure with a modified version.

The Justice Department announced the move in a brief filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. It said the new order would address complaints from a three-judge panel that parts of the order were unconstitutional.

"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 brief states.

Meanwhile, Trump said that he will issue a new executive order to replace his controversial directive suspending travel to the United States by citizens of seven mostly Muslim countries.

At a White House news conference on Thursday, Trump said the new order would seek to address concerns raised by federal appeals court judges, who temporarily blocked his original travel ban.

Also Read: Donald Trump to Unveil Overhauled Immigration Order Next Week

"The new order is going to be very much tailored to what I consider to be a very bad decision," Trump said, adding: "We had a bad court."

Trump gave no details about the replacement order. Legal experts said a new directive would have a better chance of withstanding courtroom scrutiny if it covered some non-Muslim countries and exempted non-citizen immigrants living in the US legally.

The original order, issued on Jan. 27, triggered chaos at some US and overseas airports, led to international protests, complaints from US businesses and drew more than a dozen legal challenges.

In a court filing on Thursday, the Justice Department asked for a pause in proceedings before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with a federal court in Washington state to suspend the travel ban, while litigation over its legality according to the U.S. Constitution played out.