WASHINGTON _ A federal appeals court has ruled against President Donald Trump's travel ban, upholding a nationwide injunction barring the administration from enforcing the executive order.
The ruling is the latest legal setback for Trump on the travel issue and, like several previous court rulings, the outcome rested heavily on his own words.
Trump's order restricting travel from six majority-Muslim countries "speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination," Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in his ruling.
The 10-3 ruling included numerous citations to campaign statements in which Trump called for a ban on Muslims immigrating to the United States. The plaintiffs who have challenged the travel order have argued that it is a disguised version of the Muslim ban that he called for during the campaign.
Trump's statements "provide direct, specific evidence of what motivated both EO-1 and EO-2," the court said, referring to the first and second versions of the travel order: "President Trump's desire to exclude Muslims from the United States."
The 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, Va., is one of two appeals courts that have recently heard arguments on the travel ban. A similar case is pending before the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco.
