New York Joins Lawsuit Against Trump's Revised Travel Ban

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says the state will join Washington state's lawsuit against President Donald Trump's new travel ban.

Schneiderman said in a statement Thursday that Trump's new executive order is "a Muslim ban by another name."

The Trump administration says the temporary restrictions are needed to keep Americans safe.

"This is dialed back, this is modified, and it represents a significant capitulation, and to a lot of people who were under threat before," the attorney general told WCBS 880's Alex Silverman. "But you're not allowed to discriminate against people based on religion, whether you're discriminating against many or few."

While the new order says it isn't aimed at any religion, the legal challenges against it are still mounting.

On Wednesday, Hawaii filed its own lawsuit against Trump's revised travel ban, saying the order will harm its Muslim population, tourism and foreign students.

Washington state won an initial effort to block Trump's first travel ban and is asking a judge to block the revised ban.

Schneiderman told Silverman he thinks the best place to challenge the new ban is where the last one was blocked by the courts: "Washington and in the Ninth Circuit out on the West Coast."

He said he expects the judges to look at the president's statements leading up to the order, just like they did the first time around.