The travel ban 2.0 is headed back to court.

Significant revisions that President Donald Trump made to his original national security executive order did nothing to mollify critics. Washington State, which won a restraining order blocking the Jan. 27 order, asked a judge Thursday to extendthat ruling to cover the new executive order.

But the core constitutional problems remain the same The intent behind the executive order targeting those Muslim countries still remains, and that is unconstitutional.

Yes, the revised one is more narrow thats a success, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson told National Public Radio. But the core constitutional problems remain the same The intent behind the executive order targeting those Muslim countries still remains, and that is unconstitutional.

In addition, Hawaii filed a separate federal lawsuit this week. Oregon, New York State, Minnesota, and Massachusetts have joined that litigation. A federal judge in Hawaii has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday, a day before the restrictions are supposed to take effect.

Given that the new Executive Order began life as a Muslim ban, its implementation also means that the State will be forced to tolerate a policy that disfavors one religion and violates the Establishment Clauses of both the federal and state constitutions, Hawaii lawyers wrote in the civil complaint.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer expressed confidence that the new order would pass legal muster.

I think we feel very comfortable that the executive order that was crafted is consistent and were gonna go forward on this, but by all means, I dont want to we feel very confident with how that was crafted and that input was given, he told reporters at his daily briefing.

The new order drops Iraq from a list of seven terrorism-compromised countries that would be subject to restrictions pending a review of procedures designed to keep dangerous people out of the country. And it explicitly excludes lawful permanent residents, as well as people who have valid visas on the date the order takes effect.

In addition, the new order eliminates an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees and includes them in a 120-day pause that applies to refugees from other countries. Preference to religious minorities also has been deleted.

Hawaii argues those steps are insufficient. Ismail Elshikh, a state resident who is a co-plaintiff in the case, argues that the restrictions would prevent him from receiving visits from relatives in Syria who do not currently have travel visas. What's more, the state maintains that the University of Hawaii has 27 graduate students, 10 permanent faculty members, and 30 visiting faculty members from the seven originally designated countries.

The ban would hurt Hawaii's ability to recruit new students and professors from those countries, according to the suit.

Conservative legal scholars argued that Trump is well within his rights to take steps to safeguard the country. Christopher Hajek, director of litigation at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, said Hawaii is on particularly weak ground in arguing that the Immigration and Nationality Act prohibits Trump from treating citizens of some countries differently from others.

"They have a very low probability of success on those arguments," he told LifeZette, adding that those provisions of the statute do not apply to foreigners who want to obtain visas but have no connection to the United States.

Hajek said Hawaii's argument would suggest that the United States could not block residents even from countries that were to explicitly and publicly advocate terrorist acts against America.

"That is totally unjustified under the statute or the Constitution," he said. "It's just a suicidal view."

John Malcolm, director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation, said the revised order should be on much firmer legal ground both at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals during an inevitable appeal and later at the Supreme Court.

He said the new order addresses the court's biggest concern that it was too broad. The revised order is narrower in scope and take pains to link it to terrorism prosecution and attempted terrorist attacks in the United States by people from the designated counties.

Malcolm argued it is improper for courts to consider evidence such as campaign statements by Trump or his surrogates, as Hawaii and Washington both have insisted.

"The executive order is the executive order," he said. "The executive order is what should be considered."

Malcolm said the Immigration and Nationality Act gives the president vast powers to exclude individuals and classes of foreigners he deems detrimental to the county. He said the courts traditionally have and should give deference to the president when it comes to matters of national authority.

"But I never underestimate the resiliency or the ingenuity of groups on the Left," he said.

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Liberal States Want Court to Halt Revised Travel Ban - LifeZette