WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson issued a temporary restraining order stopping implementation of President Trump’s new executive order to bar the issuance of new visas to citizens of six Muslim-majority countries.

“Judge Watson’s ruling cuts to the heart of this case,” said Amir Ali, Supreme Court and Appellate Counsel in the MacArthur Justice Center’s Washington, D.C., office. “He correctly recognized that we have a President who selected a minority religion and promised to use the office of the Presidency to target that religion. And correctly he recognized that these Executive Orders were designed to do just that.”

The ruling states that President Trump’s statements in advance of the order “betray the Executive Order’s stated secular purpose. Any reasonable, objective observer would conclude, as does the Court for purposes of the instant Motion for TRO, that the stated secular purpose of the Executive Order is, at the very least, “secondary to a religious objective” of temporarily suspending the entry of Muslims.” The ruling noted the MacArthur Justice Center’s amicus brief in the case provided many examples of Trump’s extensive record of hostile statements about people of the Muslim faith.

“President Trump’s first Executive Order was hastily drafted based on the whims of his hostility toward Muslims, and the second Order was dressed up to achieve the same goals,” Ali said. “The court properly understood that.”