WASHINGTON: The American Civil Liberties Union said Friday it will challenge the Trump administration’s latest travel ban, the first such legal action to be announced against the new ban.
The ACLU and other groups who had previously sued over the administration’s ban on visitors from six majority-Muslim countries said in a letter Friday to a federal judge in Maryland that they want to amend their existing lawsuit. The groups say the latest version of the ban, the administration’s third, also violates federal law and the Constitution.
Trump announced the latest restrictions last weekend after the previous ban expired. The restrictions are targeted at countries that the Department of Homeland Security says fail to share sufficient information with the US or haven’t taken necessary security precautions. The new restrictions impact citizens of Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen — and some Venezuelan government officials and their families — and are to go into effect Oct. 18. The prior ban also included Sudan but didn’t include Chad, North Korea or Venezuela.
In their two-page letter, the ACLU and others say they want to amend their existing lawsuit to cover the president’s latest proclamation and seek a preliminary injunction “or other relief” suspending the visa and entry restrictions in the proclamation.
Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior said in an e-mail after the ACLU announced its intention to take legal action that the department “will continue to vigorously defend the President’s inherent authority to keep this country safe.”
Groups say they’ll challenge Trump’s latest travel ban
Groups say they’ll challenge Trump’s latest travel ban
Bangladesh summons Myanmar envoy after border clashes
- A dozen villages in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district have been affected by the violence
DHAKA: Bangladesh on Tuesday summoned the ambassador of Myanmar after civil war gun battles in the neighboring country spilled over the border, wounding a Bangladeshi girl.
Heavy fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine state this month has involved junta soldiers, Arakan Army fighters and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army militia guerrillas.
Authorities said around a dozen villages in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district have been affected by the violence.
Twelve-year-old Huzaifa Afnan was struck by a bullet, while a Bangladeshi fisherman had his leg ripped off after stepping on a landmine near the frontier.
“Bangladesh reminded that the unprovoked firing towards Bangladesh is a blatant violation of international law and a hindrance to good neighborly relations,” a Foreign Ministry press statement said.
Myanmar’s ambassador to Bangladesh, U Kyaw Soe Moe, was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, where he expressed sincere sympathy to the injured victims and their families.
“My daughter was supposed to go to school, but she is on a ventilator,” Afnan’s father Jasim Uddin said. “My heart is bleeding for my baby girl.”
More than a million Rohingya have fled their homes in Myanmar, many after a 2017 military crackdown, and now eke out a living in sprawling refugee camps just across the border in Bangladesh.
ARSA, a Rohingya armed group formed to defend the persecuted Muslim minority, has been fighting the Myanmar military, as well as rival Arakan Army guerrillas.
On Monday, Bangladeshi border forces detained 53 ARSA fighters who had crossed the frontier.
Bangladeshi police officer Saiful Islam, commander of the local Teknaf station, said all detainees were being held in jail, except one fighter who was receiving hospital treatment for bullet wounds.
“These individuals have a history of living in the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar and crossing into Myanmar,” Islam told AFP.
