Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced Monday that he’s filing suit in federal court against Trump, the Department of Homeland Security and select senior Trump administration officials, seeking a declaration that key portions of Trump’s Executive Order on immigration be declared unconstitutional. Alongside the lawsuit, Washington-based tech companies Amazon and Expedia are filing supporting declarations that outline how the order is negatively impacting their business, and their employees.
The Attorney General’s suit will argue that the order violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection to all, and the right of individuals to due process. It also claims that it’s in contravention of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, and that it violates the Establishment Clause, which prevents creation of laws that establish an official state religion, or favor one over another.
The declarations provided by Amazon and Expedia seem to focus on the potential economic impact of the executive order, rather than on its constitutional validity or lack thereof. The
“If successful, this would have the effect of invalidating the President’s unlawful action nationwide,” said WA State Attorney General Ferguson in a press conference Monday morning, at which Washington Governor Jay Inslee also expressed strong condemnation of the order.
In addition to its suit regarding the order’s constitutionality, Washington’s Attorney General is also seeking a temporary restraining order to” immediately halt” what it believes to be the unlawful action ordered by Trump.
“I also want to mention that In our complaint, we talk about the real economic harm to Washington state from the President’s illegal action,” Ferguson said. “Our complaint will be supported by declarations from entities like Expedia and Amazon, in which they lay out the significant harm that this executive order imposes on their business and their employees.”
Asked whether the AG’s office had reached out to other Washington-based businesses regarding support of the suit, Ferguson noted that “it’s been a busy 48 hours putting this together, so we reached out to just a couple of businesses that had some public statements around this issue, such as Expedia.”
Amazon has also shared with TechCrunch an internal email about the ban it distributed to staff, focusing on its efforts to support any employees who may be impacted. Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, himself an Iranian immigrant to the U.S., more strongly objected to the executive order in an email circulated to his company’s staff on Sunday.
We’ve reached out to Amazon and Expedia for details regarding their declarations in support of the lawsuit, but had not received response as of publication time.
Update (2:18 PM PT): Microsoft is also supporting the Washington Attorney General’s lawsuit against the executive order with a similar declaration to those provided by Amazon and Expedia, Reuters reports. We’ve reached out to Microsoft for more information.
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