The Trump administration is confident that impending legal challenges against the president’s ban on immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries will prove unsuccessful in the courts.
“All of the enforcement and action regarding the executive order is in place as it stands now, and we feel confident that we will prevail if there are any challenges,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on Monday.
A federal judge in Brooklyn, N.Y. issued a temporary stay on Saturday against a part of the order that subjected refugees just arriving in the U.S. to immediate removal. Asked about the stay, Spicer said the administration “won’t have to prevail in that case [because] it doesn’t even make sense.”
“Remember… there are 329,000 people who came into this country in a 24-hour period. There were 109 stopped over a 24-hour period,” Spicer said, referring to the period after Trump signed the executive order on Friday.
“When you actually look at the perspective of what’s going on, a majority of Americans agree with the president,” he added.
Spicer’s comments came hours after a Democratic state attorney general from Washington announced that he plans to file a lawsuit against the administration, claiming the president’s immigration-related actions are “unconstitutional.”
