Trump administration drops appeal of original travel ban
The Justice Department moved Tuesday to dismiss the 9th Circuit appeal on President Trump’s original travel ban from late January.
On Monday, senior administration officials said that the new travel ban rolled out that day makes all previous litigation over the original travel ban “moot.”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer previously suggested that the two bans would be litigated on parallel tracks but that isn’t a legally viable option.
In early February, the 9th Circuit Court of appeals announced that it would not reinstate Mr. Trump’s original 90-day ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The original ban, part of an executive order signed by the president, also included a 120-day ban on all refugees and an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees.
After several weeks of delay, the president signed a revised travel ban Monday that will impose a 90-day ban on the issuance of new visas to people from six predominantly Muslim nations, excluding Iraq, and will suspend the U.S. refugee program for all countries for 120 days. It does, however, eliminate the blanket ban on Syrian refugees.
The revised ban will not take effect until March 16 at 12:01 a.m.
Meanwhile, Hawaii became the first state Tuesday to signal that it’s planning a legal challenge to the revised order and plans to file an amended lawsuit Wednesday.
CBS News’ Paula Reid contributed to this report.
