A Libyan man studying business at the Community College of Denver has filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver against Donald Trump claiming the president’s travel ban violates his religious and due process rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
The lawsuit says that if Zakaria Hagig, a Muslim, needed to go to his native Libya he would not be allowed to return to the U.S. within 90 days, solely because he is a citizen from one of seven Arab nations designated by Trump as friendly to terrorists.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday on behalf of Hagig by former state Senate President Morgan Carroll, an Aurora attorney, and Alan Kennedy-Shaffer, a Denver attorney.
“I have three words for President Trump: No Muslim Ban,” said Kennedy-Shaffer, a Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs. “We believe that the executive order is unlawful, unconstitutional, and un-American.”
The lawsuit also names as defendants the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; U.S. Customs and Border Protection; John Kelly, secretary of homeland security; Kevin McAleenan, acting commissioner of customs and border protection and Lashanda Jones, Denver director of customs and border protection.
Hagig is seeking an injunction ordering Trump and other defendants not to suspend, detain or remove him and other “similarly situated” people based on Trump’s Friday executive order entitled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” which bans nationals from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia from entering the U.S. for at least the next 90 days.
The lawsuit seeks a judicial declaration that Trump’s order violates the U.S. Constitution.
“Federal law specifically prohibits discrimination based on race, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence,” Carroll said. “The Constitution guarantees due process and equal protection. We hope the court agrees that the executive order is illegal.”
Hagig is seeking expedited arguments to address the issues as swiftly as possible.
“The executive order singles out refugees and non-citizens from particular nations for discrimination,” the lawsuit says. Trump proclaims that “immigrant and nonimmigrant” entry to the U.S. of aliens from certain countries would be “detrimental” to the U.S. and he suspends entry of this group of people.
The lawsuit says that Hagig is a Libyan national and a legal U.S. resident who works and pays taxes. Before the government can restrict his liberty to travel, the government must prove due cause, the lawsuit says. The order also violates the equal protection rights afforded in the Fifth and Fourteenth constitutional amendments.
“Additionally, the executive order was substantially motivated by animus toward and has a disparate effect on Muslims,” the lawsuit says. Defendants are being discriminated against on the basis of religion, it says. “President Donald Trump and senior staff have made clear that executive order will be applied to primarily exclude individuals on the basis of their national origin and being Muslim.”
Trump also promised that preferential treatment would be given to Christians, demonstrating his “forbidden animus and discriminatory intent,” the lawsuit says.
