Five US states are challenging President Donald Trump’s new travel ban.
New York, Washington, Oregon and Massachusetts have joined Hawaii in taking legal action to prevent it from taking effect.
Hawaii’s attorney general was the first to oppose the new executive order, claiming that it was fundamentally the same as the original travel ban Trump tried to impose on people from seven mainly Muslim countries.
Trump’s original executive order was defeated after a legal challenge initially mounted by Minnesota and Washington.
This latest directive will take effect on March 16 and places a 90-day ban on people from six countries and a 120-day ban on all refugees.
“Nothing of substance has changed: There is the same blanket ban on entry from Muslim-majority countries (minus one),” said Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin, according to the BBC.
He said the travel ban was particularly sensitive in Hawaii, which had experienced Japanese prisoner of war camps in WWII.
The new order will ban people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen receiving new visas for 90 days. Iraq, which was included in the first travel ban, has been removed from the list.
Green Card holders, who have a right to live in the US, will not be affected by the new order.
