Comments by Stephen Miller and Rudy Giuliani Cited in Judge’s Decision to Block Trump’s Travel Ban

Public comments made by allies and advisors of President Donald Trump, as well as Trump himself, have been cited in the decision made by a federal judge in Hawaii, whose ruling temporarily blocked the White House’s revised travel ban targeting six predominantly Muslim countries hours before it would have come in to effect.

The “plainly-worded statements” from Stephen Miller, Rudy Giuliani and Trump himself all “betray the Executive Order’s stated secular purpose,” wrote Judge Derrick Watson in his decision on Wednesday, which was blasted by Trump as “judicial overreach.”

Miller, senior White House policy adviser, told Fox News last month regarding the revised order, that “fundamentally, you’re still going to have the same basic policy outcome” as the original. The ban sparked huge protests around the country when it was rolled out, and was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court.

Trump supporter and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani also went on TV in January, after the announcement of the first travel ban, and said: “When [Trump] first announced it, he said, ‘Muslim ban.’ He called me up. He said, ‘Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.”

Read More: Immigrant, Refugee Advocates Cheer Hawaii Court Ruling on Travel Ban

The judge even cited Trump’s own words from the campaign trail in December 2015, saying “there is nothing ‘veiled’ about” his call for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

Writing that there is nothing “secret” about Trump’s motive regarding the order, Judge Watson concluded 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.”