The Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the first groups to announce it was suing the Trump administration after the first travel ban was signed on Jan. 27, issued a stern condemnation of President Trump’s new executive order on immigration and refugees on Monday.
“This executive order, like the last order, is at its core a Muslim ban, which is discriminatory and unconstitutional,” Nihad Awad, CAIR executive director, said in a statement.
Lena Masri, an attorney for the organization, said in a statement that the new travel ban is “merely a retooled order aimed at the same long-stated goal of banning Muslims from entering the United States.”
CAIR filed suit against the original executive order on in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., on Jan. 30 in the case Sarsour vs. Trump. The case argues that the first executive order is unconstitutional because it violates the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom and the 5th Amendment’s equal protection rights.