Democratic Sen. Chris Coons Thursday attributed the federal appellate court ruling further blocking President Donald Trump's travel ban to some of the Republican candidates "outrageous statements" during the campaign.
"The decision today by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals is a reminder that the outrageous statements by then-candidate Donald Trump that he wanted to block Muslims from coming in to this country could be ascribed as the motivation behind the ban that he put in place as president," the Delaware senator told Jake Tapper to CNN.
"That's because this was a ban that prevented only refugees coming from Muslim-majority countries, not from countries based on an assessment of risk."
In a 10-3 decision, the appeals court in Richmond upheld a lower court ruling that blocked the Trump administration from temporarily suspending new visas for people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The ruling was the first by an appellate court on the revised ban, which White House officials had hoped would avoid the legal problems that the first version encountered.
The case is likely to move to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Coons, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Tapper that "if we had an attack by refugees happening in the United States, there might be more of a basis for this.
"There hasn't been any recent terrorist attack or terrorist-inspired or terrorist-related attack by anybody admitted into the U.S."
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