In a short filing in his Honolulu court on Sunday, US District Judge Derrick Watson told federal lawyers who protested against the broad scope of his ruling that "there is nothing unclear" about his order against the ban, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The Department of Justice had filed a motion asking Watson to scale back his decision that found the travel ban to discriminate against Muslims, to match another ruling against it issued by a federal court in Maryland.
On Wednesday Watson ordered a stop to Trump’s 90-day ban on travel into the US by citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and a 120-day pause on refugee resettlement from any country.
In their motion on Friday, government lawyers had asked Watson to revise his ruling to say it did not apply to the refugee ban or to the government studies and reports.
Federal lawyers did not abandon their argument that Trump’s executive order is constitutional but said the judge should limit his ruling to the six-country ban.
If Watson had granted the request, the Hawaii ruling would have largely matched a Maryland federal court order against the travel ban that was issued on Thursday. The Maryland judge declined to rule against the pause and cap on refugees.
The original travel ban, signed was blocked in the US’s federal district courts and the 9th Circuit. The new ban, signed on March 6 and scheduled to come into effect on March 16, was modified.
Changes included deleting Iraq from the list of countries whose travellers would be blocked and removing preferential treatment of refugees who were religious minorities.
