"Apple, Alphabet's Google and Facebook are among more than 60 technology companies that appear to have backed away from the legal fight against U.S. President Donald Trump's controversial travel ban, deciding not to put their weight behind a lawsuit seeking to block the second version of his executive order.

A legal brief filed in federal court in Hawaii on Tuesday on behalf of Silicon Valley companies listed the support of 58 companies, less than half the 127 signatories to a similar brief filed in an appeals court last month after Trump's first executive order banning travel from a number of countries the administration said posed a security risk.

Airbnb, Dropbox and Kickstarter are among the companies that did sign the brief.

Major tech companies that signed on to the earlier effort but not this week included Microsoft, eBay, Intel, Netflix and Twitter....

Tech companies, which generally rely on skilled workers from overseas more than other industries, played a large part in the legal effort to halt the first version of Trump's executive order, which was put on hold by a Seattle judge in early February.

It was not immediately clear why fewer of them signed on to the "friend-of-the-court" brief this time around.

Companies will have an opportunity to join the effort as it moves through the court system, said Robert Atkins, a New York lawyer and co-author of the brief. "We do expect the group to expand.""

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/15/trump-travel-ban-apple-google-facebook-skip-legal-challenge-to-new-ban.html

Meanwhile, legal experts weigh in saying the new travel ban will be harder to challenge than the first was.

"Legal experts: New travel ban has a better chance of surviving court challenges than the old one....

Liberal and conservative legal experts, including those who served in Democratic and Republican presidential administrations, said President Trump's new travel ban has a better chances of surviving legal challenges when compared to his first executive order, which has been held up in federal courts.

Here's what a few of them told the Los Angeles Times:
The new travel ban is tainted by all the same evidence of religious discrimination that doomed the old travel ban. It affects fewer people, and people with fewer ties to the United States, so that makes judicial intervention a bit harder. On the other hand, the way the Trump administration manipulated the roll-out of the new ban according to the ebb and flow of the news cycle undermines the administration's demand for deference on the topic of national security.
(Margo Schlanger, University of Michigan law professor and former head of civil rights for the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama)

I think the new order will withstand judicial scrutiny. Because it grants admission to all existing visa holders and permanent resident aliens, it is difficult to see who has standing to challenge this order.... Aliens outside our territory with no pre-existing connection to the U.S. do not have rights under the Constitution that can be recognized in court. This time, the order explicitly relies on the findings of the last administration and the agencies that the six nations in question are state sponsors of terrorism or are countries where terrorist [activities] are matters of high concern. The editing out of special exceptions for Christian minorities undermines criticism that this order arises from anti-religion bias. It will be much harder to show connections between anti-Muslim statements made during the campaign and the motives behind this order...
(John Yoo, UC Berkeley law professor who worked in President George W. Bush’s Department of Justice )

This is certainly better drafted than the prior version, especially with regard to not excluding those who have the lawful right to be in the United States. But it still designates majority Muslim countries where there is no linkage to terrorism in the United States. This still runs afoul of the 1965 Immigration Act, which prohibits discrimination based on national origin. And based on prior statements of President Trump that Christians would be allowed in, this still can be challenged as a Muslim ban. Put simply, it corrects some of the problems courts found with the prior executive order, but many of the serious problems remain.
(UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky )

The new travel limitation is clearly more defensible as it follows the roadmap of concerns raised by the 9th Circuit [Court of Appeals]. Thus, it can be reasonably argued that the facial invalidity of the last order has been addressed and corrected. Of course, an order can be fine on its face and still be improperly applied. Moreover, it can be legitimately asked -- given existing vetting procedures -- whether an executive order is needed at all, but that is a judgment for the president. In matters of foreign affairs, the judiciary will defer to the president so long as his actions have a conceivable rational basis and do not transgress either the Constitution or statutory limitation.
(Douglas Kmiec, Pepperdine University law professor who worked in the Department of Justice under President Reagan and President George H.W. Bush)

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-live-updates-9th-circuit-arguments-legal-experts-new-travel-ban-has-a-1488833851-htmlstory.html

One of the critical programmers at my current company is here on a work visa.
He was born in Iran, but left when he was 3 years old, moving with his family to Germany. He's not muslim (he's apathetic about religion), and he considers himself German with Iranian ancestry. He's a German citizen (but still has Iranian citizenship, a dual national). His parents are muslims, but have been contently living in Germany with no problems for over 25 years.

When the first "travel ban" hit, he asked our corporate attorney if it applied to him. So the attorney contacted government officials, and asked if the "travel ban" would prevent him from going to see his family in Germany and returning, or would affect his work visa status.

What the attorney was told (I'm paraphrasing below):
"He'll probably be fine, since he's not muslim. But his parents won't be able to come here [they've been coming annually for many years] any more. And there's a chance that regular trips abroad would put him under greater scrutiny, and possibly jeopardize his work visa."

That's horrible that his parents might not be able to visit.

Of course, my wife's parents could never visit from Asia. The U.S. Government would never issue a visa.

America - banning people for decades.

My Filipina mother-in-law has been visiting us for about 5 months of a six-month visa. She's been here 9 times, and has a good "record" of never overstaying, trying to get government assistance, etc. Yet even she was cautioned (by the embassy in the Philippines) that this might be her last trip for a while, because if she applies next year for another six-month visa, she might not get it.

That's terrible about your wife's parents. What a shame.
:(

Several of my son's colleagues in grad school were Iranian. Three of them met up with him for Christmas one year, during Obama's administration, in NYC. They flew through Seattle. Son flew through Canada.

What happened was when they arrived at JFK, their luggage was not there to meet them. All three had their luggage held up by authorities (was it the TSA? or DHS?) Their luggage was delivered a day later to their hotel by courier from the airport.

Son's arrived with him, without a hitch. Coincidence? I don't think so.

There are app 72,000 Iranians immigrate to Canada yearly from Iran. That's approximately the same number of Americans who immigrate to Canada yearly. Why so many Iranians to Canada and not to America? They're welcome there *if* they can fill critical shortage areas Canada needs as it has a merit based system for immigrants. Iran has a highly educated workforce.