Order halting travel ban conflicts with Boston ruling

BOSTON – A federal judge in Boston declined Friday to extend a temporary injunction against President Donald Trump’s travel ban. But a separate federal ruling in Seattle later in the day put the ban on hold nationwide.

U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton in Boston declined to renew an order prohibiting the detention or removal of people as part of Trump’s executive order on refugees and immigrants. That means a seven-day, temporary injunction granted Jan. 29 would have expired as scheduled Sunday.

But U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle issued a Friday night ruling that temporarily blocks the ban on travellers and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The states that requested the order, Washington and Minnesota, had sought a broader ruling that would apply nationwide.

Robart wrote that his order “is granted on a nationwide basis.”

The initial Massachusetts order came after the American Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of two University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth professors detained at Logan Airport as they returned from an academic conference.

The professors are Iranian Muslims and lawful permanent U.S. residents. They were eventually allowed to re-enter.