This lawsuit filed on January 30, 2017, challenged President Trump’s January 27, 2017, Executive Order (EO-1). EO-1 barred legal immigrants and refugees from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US and prohibited Syrian refugees from entering the US indefinitely. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (in Alexandria) by a group of Muslim American activisits and political leaders as well as 12 anonymous plaintiffs residing in the US with varied immigration statuses who would not be able to leave and re-enter the US as a result of EO-1. The case was assigned to Judge Anthony Trenga.

The complaint argued that one of the purposes of EO-1 was to “initiate the mass expulsion of immigrant and nonimmigrant Muslims lawfully residing in the US by denying them the ability to renew their lawful status or receive immigration benefits afforded to them under the Immigration and Nationality Act.” Moreover, it argued that EO-1 applied only to Muslims. Therefore, according to the complaint, EO-1 had an illegal purpose and effect and violated the First Amendment Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses, Equal Protection, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The complaint named (all in their official capacity) then US President Donald Trump, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Department of State as defendants. Represented by private counsel and attorneys from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that EO-1 violated the Fifth Amendment, and an injunction requiring the government to remedy the Constitutional violations caused by EO-1, a jury trial, and attorneys’ fees. While all versions of the complaint in this lawsuit referenced claims for relief for plaintiffs and “others similarly situated” the docket does not indicate that a motion for class certification was ever filed.

On March 6, 2017, the President rescinded EO-1 and replaced it with a narrower one, Executive Order 13780 (EO-2). In response, plaintiffs filed both an amended complaint and an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction on March 13, 2017. The amended complaint argued that the history and text of the rescinded EO-1 revealed an illegal purpose. Further, the effects of EO-2 continued to impact Muslims seeking entry to the US as EO-2 still allowed the illegal purpose of the rescinded EO-1 to take effect. The amended complaint removed the Free Exercise claim and added an allegation that EO-2 violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

District Judge Trenga denied plaintiffs’ emergency motion on March 24, 2017. He found that while plaintiffs had standing to challenge EO-2, they failed to show the EO-2 exceeded the President's authority. Additionally, the court found that plaintiffs had not shown they would be likely to succeed on the merits of their Establishment Clause claim. Diverging from the court in Trump v. Hawaii, the district judge refused to use the President's past statements as evidence of the order's discriminatory nature, reasoning that "the Court cannot conclude for the purposes of the Motion that these statements, together with the President’s past statements, have effectively disqualified him from exercising his lawful presidential authority." 245 F. Supp. 3d 719.

On April 21, 2017, the government filed a motion to stay proceedings pending the outcome of IRAP v. Trump where oral arguments in front of the Fourth Circuit had been scheduled for May 8, 2017. The government pointed to how the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland had issued a nationwide injunction barring the enforcement of Section 2(c) of EO-2 and the disposition of that case on appeal would affect the district court’s consideration of the legal issues in this case. The court stayed proceedings on April 24, 2017, and continued the stay on August 18, 2017, following the Supreme Court’s decision to grant certiorari for IRAP after the Fourth Circuit upheld the preliminary injunction.

The Supreme Court remanded IRAP to the district court with orders to dismiss the case as moot on October 11, 2017, as EO-2 expired on September 24, 2017. In response, the district court lifted the stay on this case for the limited purpose of allowing plaintiffs to file an amended complaint so that they could address the most recent version of the travel ban EO-3 (issued on September 24).

Plaintiffs filed their second amended complaint on December 26, 2017, and made substantively similar arguments to their first amended complaint. Following plaintiffs' amended complaint, the government moved to stay proceedings on January 5, 2018, pending the resolution of the IRAP and Hawaii cases which had both made their way back to the Supreme Court. The court granted defendants' motion to stay on January 9, 2018. There were no further proceedings from January 2018 to June 2021.

Following President Biden’s revocation of the travel ban EOs on his Inauguration Day (January 20, 2021), the parties submitted a joint stipulation of dismissal on June 25, 2021. Accordingly, District Judge Trenga signed an order dismissing the case on the same day.

This case is closed.

Virginia Weeks - 03/21/2017
Jamie Kessler - 01/20/2018
Virginia Weeks - 09/15/2017
Eva Richardson - 04/22/2019
Esteban Woo Kee - 08/08/2021


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