(Bloomberg) -- A pair of Iranian romances are at the center of the first lawsuit targeting President Donald Trump's latest travel ban against several Muslim-majority countries, Venezuela and North Korea.
A complaint filed late Monday in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, pits the Trump administration against a nonprofit group, Iranian Alliances Across Borders, and six unnamed U.S. citizens of Iranian descent, including two women who are seeking visas for the Iranian men they love.
Trump's Sept. 24 proclamation will indefinitely limit most travelers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, all of which were part of the original ban. It will also restrict travel to the U.S. from Chad, North Korea and Venezuela. And unlike earlier versions, the new directive doesn't have an expiration date and has fewer exemptions based on family ties.
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"This is the most cruel and absurd of the three Muslim bans," Shayan Modarres, the lawyer for the National Iranian American Council, which is also involved in the case, said Tuesday in a conference call for reporters.
The suit seeks a national injunction to block the ban before it takes effect Oct. 18. Other plaintiffs are seeking visas for siblings, children and in-laws.
Doe Plaintiff #1
A White House official said Tuesday that the ban is legal and was designed to protect the U.S. homeland from foreign terrorists.
"The Trump Administration will ensure we only admit those who can be properly vetted and will not pose a threat to national security or public safety," the official said, in an email responding to the lawsuit.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge George Jarrod Hazel, who was appointed by President Barack Obama.
One of the women in the suit, listed as Doe Plaintiff #1, escaped Iran to avoid religious persecution and married in 2016. Iranian Alliances Across Borders claims the ban is preventing the couple from returning to Maryland from the United Arab Emirates, where they moved temporarily while seeking a visa, even though his visa was granted in September.
"She fears that due to the proclamation, his visa will now be suspended and they will be indefinitely banned from building their life together in Maryland as they had hoped," the group said the complaint. "They would face persecution if forced to return to Iran."
Doe Plaintiff #2, who was born in the U.S. and has lived in Maryland her entire life, applied for a visa for her Iranian fiance in January, according to the complaint. Her fiance completed his interview at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, in August and is awaiting a response, the suit says.
If the visa isn't issued by Oct. 18 the plaintiff "will be separated indefinitely from her fiance, and will be forced to choose between the only home she has ever known and the love of her life," the student group says.
True Reason
Trump's negative comments about Muslims before the election are once again cited in the complaint to suggest that the true reason for the ban is bigotry -- not the White House's detailed national security justifications.
"The recently generated national security rationale cannot wipe away the anti-Muslim bias that has animated President Trump's dogged efforts to fulfill his promise to ban Muslims from entering this country," the group said.
The complaint quotes Trump saying in interviews in 2015 that he'd require Muslims in the U.S. to register with the government, and that the nation had “absolutely no choice” but to shut down mosques. It also quotes Trump saying in a statement after the terror attack in San Bernardino, California, that all Muslims believe in “murder against non-believers who won't convert” and “unthinkable acts” against women.
"This intended Muslim ban became a central talking point of the Trump campaign, promoted by Mr. Trump and his surrogates at campaign events across the country," the group said.
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The Iranian group claims that the addition of non-Muslim countries to the ban is a calculated attempt to "paper over" the legal defects of the first two versions, one of which was deemed by a federal court judge to be "steeped in animus."
Legal experts have said that, unlike earlier versions of the ban, the language of the new directive and the reasoning behind it appear to be watertight, with Trump's comments about Muslims the only remaining flaw.
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Andrew Martin, Paul Cox
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