The Department of Justice said Wednesday that it will continue to defend President Trump’s executive order which was blocked by a federal judge.
The executive order temporarily suspended the refugee resettlement program and immigration from six countries with high incidents of terror. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson of the District of Hawaii blocked enforcement of the order on a mostly religious discrimination argument, citing the establishment clause which prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another. (RELATED:Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Revised Refugee Order)
DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement:”The Department of Justice strongly disagrees with the federal district court’s ruling, which is flawed both in reasoning and in scope.”
“The President’s Executive Order falls squarely within his lawful authority in seeking to protect our Nation’s security, and the Department will continue to defend this Executive Order in the courts,” Flores added.
President Trump has echoed this sentiment and called the decision “judicial overreach,” and said, “we are going to take our case as far as it needs to go, even to the Supreme Court.”