Tag Archives: Lawsuit

Civil liberties groups sue U.S., seek details on travel ban

Demonstrators participate in a protest by the Yemeni community against U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., February 2, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) – Civil liberties groups on Wednesday said they were filing a series of lawsuits against the U.S. government seeking details on how federal agencies enforced President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The lawsuits were filed by local chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union against U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security and cover their operations in 14 cities stretching from Portland, Maine, to San Diego.

The suits are an attempt to enforce requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) just days after Trump signed his first executive order limiting travel.

That Jan. 27 order, intended to fulfill a campaign promise to take a tough stance on immigration, first temporarily barred travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The order, which also temporarily barred refugees, led to a weekend of chaos at U.S. airports with travelers barred from entering the country upon landing while thousands of people turned out to protest the measures.

A federal judge ordered a halt to enforcement of that ban and Trump followed up in March with a less-sweeping order that did not limit travelers from Iraq, but which has also been challenged in courts. Opponents said the orders violated the U.S. constitution’s prohibitions on religious discrimination, citing Trump’s campaign promises to impose a “Muslim ban.”

The Trump administration said the restrictions are legal and are necessary to protect U.S. national security.

The suits, filed in federal courts, seek disclosure of how many people have been detained or subjected to additional screening since the first executive order as well as the guidance that was provided to DHS staff about how to enforce the order.

“Customs and Border Protection has a long, rich history of ignoring its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act and so these lawsuits are an effort to enforce its obligations,” said Zachary Heiden, legal director at the ACLU of Maine, in a phone interview. He noted that the ACLU filed its FOIA requests for information on Feb. 2.

Officials at CBP and DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the suits.

In addition to Portland and San Diego, the suits cover CBP operations in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Tucson, Miami and Tampa. One suit filed in Florida covers the two cities in that state.

(Reporting by Scott Malone, editing by G Crosse)

United passenger launches legal action over forceful removal

A video screengrab shows passenger David Dao being dragged off a United Airlines flight at Chicago O'Hare International Airport in this video filmed by @JayseDavid April 9, 2017. Jayse D. Anspach via REUTERS

By Alana Wise

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Lawyers for the passenger dragged from a United Airlines plane in Chicago filed an emergency request with an Illinois state court on Wednesday to require the carrier to preserve video recordings and other evidence related to the incident.

Citing the risk of “serious prejudice” to their client, Dr. David Dao, the lawyers want United and the City of Chicago, which runs O’Hare International Airport, to preserve surveillance videos, cockpit voice recordings, passenger and crew lists, and other materials related to United Flight 3411.

Chicago’s Aviation Department said on Wednesday that two more officers had been placed on leave in connection with the April 9 incident, during which airport security officers dragged Dao from his seat aboard a United jet headed for Louisville, Kentucky. One officer was placed on leave on Tuesday.

Paul Callan, a civil and criminal trial lawyer in New York, said the public outcry over Dao’s treatment would likely push the airline to a quick and generous settlement.

“Because United has such a catastrophic PR problem, this case has a much greater value than such a case would normally have,” he said.

United Chief Executive Oscar Munoz on Wednesday apologized to Dao, his family and United customers in an ABC News interview, saying the company would no longer use law enforcement officers to remove passengers from overbooked flights.

“This can never, will never happen again,” he said.

Munoz is under pressure to contain a torrent of bad publicity and calls for boycotts against United unleashed by videos that captured Dao’s rough treatment by airline and airport security staff.

Dao was removed to make room for additional crew members, United said.

Footage from the incident shows Dao, bloodied and disheveled, returning to the cabin and repeating: “Just kill me. Kill me,” and “I have to go home.”

As of Tuesday, Dao was still in a Chicago hospital recovering from his injuries, his lawyer said.

On Wednesday, United said it would compensate all passengers on board the flight the cost of their tickets.

Munoz said United would be examining the way it compensates customers who volunteer to give up seats on overbooked planes, adding that it would likely not demand that seated passengers surrender their places.

Some U.S. lawmakers called for new rules that could make it more difficult for airlines to overbook flights as a tool for increasing revenue.

U.S. President Donald Trump said it was “horrible” that Dao was dragged off the flight, according to an interview from the Wall Street Journal. Rather than calling for an end to the practice of overselling, Trump said that instead, there should be no upper limit to incentives carriers can offer passengers in exchange for their seats on overbooked flights.

Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate committee that oversees transportation have questioned United’s actions.

But Delta Air Lines Inc CEO Ed Bastian on Wednesday defended overbooking as “a valid business practice” that does not require additional oversight by the government.

“It’s not a question, in my opinion, as to whether you overbook,” Bastian said on a call with analysts. “It’s how you manage an overbook situation.”

The backlash from the incident resonated around the world, with social media users in the United States, China and Vietnam calling for boycotts of the No. 3 U.S. carrier by passenger traffic and an end to the practice of overbooking flights.

Shares of United Continental closed 1.1 percent lower at $69.93. They fell as much as 4.4 percent on Tuesday.

Two online petitions calling for Munoz to step down as CEO had more than 124,000 signatures combined by Wednesday afternoon. Munoz told ABC he had no plans to resign over the incident.

(Reporting by Alana Wise in New York; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington, and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Richard Chang)

Seattle sues Trump administration over threat to ‘sanctuary’ cities

FILE PHOTO: The skyline of Seattle, Washington, U.S. is seen in a picture taken March 12, 2014. REUTERS/Jason Redmond/File Photo

By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) – The city of Seattle sued U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday over its executive order seeking to withhold federal funds from “sanctuary cities,” arguing it amounted to unconstitutional federal coercion.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray told reporters the Constitution forbade the federal government from pressuring cities, “yet that is exactly what the president’s order does. Once again, this new administration has decided to bully.”

“Things like grants helping us with child sex trafficking are not connected to immigration,” Murray said, adding: “It is time for cities to stand up and ask the courts to put an end to the anxiety in our cities and the chaos in our system.”

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened on Monday to strip Justice Department grants from cities and other local governments that choose to shield illegal immigrants from deportation efforts.

Trump, who made tougher immigration enforcement a cornerstone of his campaign, directed the government in his Jan. 25 executive order to cut off funding to sanctuary jurisdictions. That order has yet to be put into effect, but Sessions’ announcement seemed to be the first step in doing so.

Trump administration officials say the immigration crackdown is focused on illegal immigrants convicted of serious crimes.

Responding to the Seattle lawsuit, a U.S. Justice Department representative said in a statement: “Failure to deport aliens who are convicted of criminal offenses makes our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on our streets.”

Seattle’s action was the latest legal salvo over the Trump immigration order from local governments across the country, including the city of San Francisco and California’s Santa Clara County.

Police agencies in dozens of “sanctuary” cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, have barred their officers from routinely checking on immigration status when making arrests or traffic stops. They have also refused to detain people longer than otherwise warranted at the request of federal agents seeking to deport them.

Supporters of the policy argue that enlisting police cooperation in rounding up immigrants for removal undermines communities’ trust in local police, particularly among Latinos.

Murray said the goal of Seattle’s lawsuit was to have the courts declare that federal authorities “cannot force our local police officials to be involved in federal immigration activities.”

(Editing by Patrick Enright and Peter Cooney)

Courts to hear arguments challenging Trump’s new travel ban

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump attends a meeting with U.S. House Deputy Whip team at the East room of the White House in Washington, U.S. March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

By Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) – Court hearings in Hawaii and Maryland on Wednesday could decide the immediate fate of President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban, which is set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) on Thursday.

The courts have been asked in lawsuits challenging the ban to issue restraining orders that would prevent it from taking effect pending resolution of the litigation.

The new order, which temporarily bars the entry of most refugees as well as travelers from six Muslim-majority countries, was signed by the president on March 6, with a 10-day lag before it took effect.

It replaced an earlier, broader order that was signed amid much fanfare a week after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. The first order temporarily banned travelers from seven countries in addition to most refugees and took effect immediately, causing chaos and protests at airports across the country and around the globe.

States and civil rights groups filed more than two dozen lawsuits against the first order, arguing it discriminated against Muslims and violated the U.S. Constitution.

In response to a lawsuit by Washington state, a federal judge in Seattle last month issued a nationwide halt to the first order. That decision was upheld by a U.S. appeals court.

The Trump administration made changes in an attempt to address the judges’ concerns. But the states and civil rights groups went back to court arguing the new ban did not solve the problems and should be stopped.

‘WHO WOULD BE HARMED?’

One central question likely to be raised at the hearings is who would be harmed by the new ban. The administration in its new order explicitly exempts legal permanent residents and existing visa holders and provides a series of waivers for various categories of immigrants with ties to the United States.

While the new order still bars citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the country for 90 days, Iraq is no longer on the list. Refugees are still barred for 120 days, but an indefinite ban on all refugees from Syria was deleted.

To succeed, the plaintiffs must show they have “standing” to challenge the ban, which means they must have been harmed by the policy.

If they get past that hurdle, the plaintiffs will argue that both the new ban and the old discriminate on the basis of religion and are unconstitutional.

The Trump administration disputes that allegation, citing as evidence that many Muslim-majority countries are not included in the ban.

In the Hawaii case, the island state says its universities and tourist economy would be harmed by the restrictions on travel.

Hawaii also sued in conjunction with a plaintiff named Ismail Elshikh, an American citizen from Egypt who is an imam at the Muslim Association of Hawaii. Elshikh says his family will be harmed if his mother-in-law, who lives in Syria, is prevented from visiting because of the restrictions.

The government in its response to Hawaii said Elshikh had not been harmed because the ban allows for waivers, and his mother-in-law could apply for one.

In the Maryland case, the American Civil Liberties Union is representing refugee resettlement agencies it says will be hurt by the ban because it affects their operations. The ACLU adds that some of the agencies’ clients are in conflict zones and face imminent danger even if they are only temporarily barred from the United States.

“All of those exemptions and waivers were an effort to shore up this discriminatory order after the fact,” said Cecillia Wang, ACLU deputy legal director told reporters on a conference call with reporters.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York and Dan Levine in Honolulu; Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Greenbelt, Md.; Editing by Sue Horton and Peter Cooney)

Several states jointly sue to block Trump’s revised travel ban

DAY 46 / MARCH 6: President Donald Trump signed a revised executive order banning citizens from six Muslim-majority nations from traveling to the United States but removing Iraq from the list, after his controversial first attempt was blocked in the courts.

By Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) – A group of states renewed their effort on Monday to block President Donald Trump’s revised temporary ban on refugees and travelers from several Muslim-majority countries, arguing that his executive order is the same as the first one that was halted by federal courts.

Court papers filed by the state of Washington and joined by California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Oregon asked a judge to stop the March 6 order from taking effect on Thursday.

An amended complaint said the order was similar to the original Jan. 27 directive because it “will cause severe and immediate harms to the States, including our residents, our colleges and universities, our healthcare providers, and our businesses.”

A Department of Justice spokeswoman said it was reviewing the complaint and would respond to the court.

A more sweeping ban implemented hastily in January caused chaos and protests at airports. The March order by contrast gave 10 days’ notice to travelers and immigration officials.

Last month, U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle halted the first travel ban after Washington state sued, claiming the order was discriminatory and violated the U.S. Constitution. Robart’s order was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Trump revised his order to overcome some of the legal hurdles by including exemptions for legal permanent residents and existing visa holders and taking Iraq off the list of countries covered. The new order still halts citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days but has explicit waivers for various categories of immigrants with ties to the country.

Refugees are still barred for 120 days, but the new order removed an indefinite ban on all refugees from Syria.

Washington state has now gone back to Robart to ask him to apply his emergency halt to the new ban.

Robart said in a court order Monday that the government has until Tuesday to respond to the states’ motions. He said he would not hold a hearing before Wednesday and did not commit to a specific date to hear arguments from both sides.

PROVING HARM

Separately, Hawaii has also sued over the new ban. The island state, which is heavily dependent on tourism, said the executive order has had a “chilling effect” on travel revenues.

In response to Hawaii’s lawsuit, the Department of Justice in court papers filed on Monday said the president has broad authority to “restrict or suspend entry of any class of aliens when in the national interest.” The department said the temporary suspensions will allow a review of the current screening process in an effort to protect against terrorist attacks.

There is a hearing in the Hawaii case set for Wednesday, the day before the new ban is set to go into effect.

The first hurdle for the lawsuits will be proving “standing,” which means finding someone who has been harmed by the policy. With so many exemptions, legal experts have said it might be hard to find individuals who would have a right to sue, in the eyes of a court.

To overcome this challenge, the states filed more than 70 declarations of people affected by the order including tech businesses Amazon and Expedia, which said that restricting travel hurts their revenues and their ability to recruit employees.

Universities and medical centers that rely on foreign doctors also weighed in, as did religious organizations and individual residents, including U.S. citizens, with stories about separated families.

But the Trump administration in its filings in the Hawaii case on Monday said the carve-outs in the new order undercut the state’s standing claims.

“The Order applies only to individuals outside the country who do not have a current visa, and even as to them, it sets forth robust waiver provisions,” the Department of Justice’s motion said.

The government cited Supreme Court precedent in arguing that people outside the United States and seeking admission for the first time have “no constitutional rights” regarding their applications.

If the courts do end up ruling the states have standing to sue, the next step will be to argue that both versions of the executive order discriminate against Muslims.

“The Trump Administration may have changed the text of the now-discredited Muslim travel ban, but they didn’t change its unconstitutional intent and effect,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement on Monday.

While the text of the order does not mention Islam, the states claim that the motivation behind the policy is Trump’s campaign promise of “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” He later toned down that language and said he would implement a policy of “extreme vetting” of foreigners coming to the United States.

The government said the courts should only look at the text of the order and not at outside comments by Trump or his aides.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Grant McCool)

Trump’s revised travel ban dealt first court setback

Immigration activists, including members of the DC Justice for Muslims Coalition, rally against the Trump administration's new ban against travelers from six Muslim-majority nations, outside of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington, U.S., March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Thayer

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – A federal judge in Wisconsin dealt the first legal blow to President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban on Friday, barring enforcement of the policy to deny U.S. entry to the wife and child of a Syrian refugee already granted asylum in the United States.

The temporary restraining order, granted by U.S. District Judge William Conley in Madison, applies only to the family of the Syrian refugee, who brought the case anonymously to protect the identities of his wife and daughter, still living in the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo.

But it represents the first of several challenges brought against Trump’s newly amended executive order, issued on March 6 and due to go into effect on March 16, to draw a court ruling in opposition to its enforcement.

Conley, chief judge of the federal court in Wisconsin’s western district and an appointee of former President Barack Obama, concluded the plaintiff “has presented some likelihood of success on the merits” of his case and that his family faces “significant risk of irreparable harm” if forced to remain in Syria.

The plaintiff, a Sunni Muslim, fled Syria to the United States in 2014 to “escape near-certain death” at the hands of sectarian military forces fighting the Syrian government in Aleppo, according to his lawsuit.

He subsequently obtained asylum for his wife and their only surviving child, a daughter, and their application had cleared the security vetting process and was headed for final processing when it was halted by Trump’s original travel ban on Jan. 27.

That executive order sought to ban admission to the United States of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Iraq – for 120 days and to suspend entry of all refugees indefinitely.

The original travel ban, which caused widespread chaos and protests at airports when first implemented, was rescinded after the state of Washington won a nationwide federal court order blocking further enforcement of the policy.

The modified executive order reduced the number of excluded counties – removing Iraq from the list – and lifted the indefinite refugee travel ban for Syrians. But opponents from several states have gone to court seeking to halt its implementation as well.

“The court appreciates that there may be important differences between the original executive order, and the revised executive order,” Conley wrote in his decision. “As the order applies to the plaintiff here, however, the court finds his claims have at least some chance of prevailing for the reasons articulated by other courts.”

In a related development on Friday, the federal judge in Seattle who imposed a nationwide injunction on enforcement of the original travel ban refused a request to apply that order to the revised policy, saying that lawyers from states opposed to the measure needed to file more extensive court papers.

(Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by Sandra Maler and Mary Milliken)

Massachusetts judge considers right-to-die lawsuit

Retired Massachusetts physician Roger Kligler, a plaintiff in a right-to-die lawsuit, speaks to reporters outside a courtroom in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., March 8, 2017. REUTERS/Nate Raymond

By Nate Raymond

BOSTON (Reuters) – Two Massachusetts doctors urged a judge on Wednesday to let them proceed with a lawsuit seeking an order that the state’s murder and manslaughter laws do not apply to physicians who offer lethal medications to terminally ill patients.

During arguments before Superior Court Judge Mary Ames in Boston, a lawyer for the doctors, one of whom is suffering from cancer, said a cloud of uncertainty was preventing physicians from providing such medications.

“Medical aid-in-dying is simply not covered by the Commonwealth’s manslaughter and murder laws,” lawyer John Kappos said.

He made the arguments on behalf of Roger Kligler, a retired doctor diagnosed with stage-four prostate cancer, and Alan Steinbach, a physician who says he is willing to write prescriptions for lethal medication but fears prosecution.

Assistant Attorney General Robert Quinan said that while Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey extended her “utmost sympathy” to Kligler, no grounds existed to grant the ruling he sought.

Quinan argued the court should defer to the state legislature to decide the issue and ensure safeguards are enacted to protect vulnerable patients and the integrity of the medical community.

“Only a deliberative body can implement the appropriate safeguards,” he said.

Ames made no ruling on whether to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed in October, following two hours of arguments. She called the issues “important” and said the case was headed to a higher court no matter how she ruled.

“These are probably issues very much on the mind of anyone with family members facing very serious disease and mortality,” Ames said.

The lawsuit is being pursued by nonprofit right-to-die organization Compassion & Choices.

According to the group, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana, California and Colorado and the District of Columbia allow medical aid-in-dying, with all but one of the states taking the action as a result of legislation or ballot initiatives.

The Massachusetts legislature has considered, but never enacted, similar legislation. In 2012, voters narrowly defeated a ballot initiative that would have legalized the practice.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Peter Cooney)

U.S. attorney general pushes to stop suing local police

A bitterly divided Senate confirmed Republican Senator Jeff Sessions as the next attorney general of the United States. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Tuesday that the federal government should stop spending money to sue local police departments, signaling a sharp departure from the previous administration’s policy toward law enforcement exhibiting patterns of racism or excessive force.

In his speech to the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington, Sessions said the Justice Department should instead use its resources to help police figure out the best way to fight crime.

He announced the formation of a Justice Department task force to look at deficiencies in current practices to combat crime and propose new legislation.

The Justice Department is still weighing whether it should impose reforms on the Chicago Police Department, which was the subject of a critical report by the Obama administration.

Sessions said violent crime had risen since 2014, although it is down almost half since the early 1990s.

Federal Bureau of Investigation crime statistics for 2015, the latest year for which complete data is available, showed violent crimes increased 3.9 percent from 2014, while property crimes declined by 2.6 percent. The rise in violent crime came after two years of decreases, not decades of declines as Sessions suggested.

The Obama administration began several investigations into police departments that it said were unfairly targeting minorities and using excessive force. Videos of such incidents shared online have sparked protests in cities from Baltimore to Ferguson, Missouri.

The address to the attorneys general, who are responsible for prosecuting state-level crimes, signaled that the Trump administration would commit itself to supporting police rather than questioning their practices.

“To confront the challenge of rising crime, we must rely heavily on local law enforcement to lead the way,” Sessions said in prepared remarks. “And they must know they have our steadfast support.”

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Trump administration sued over protection for vanishing bumble bee

Bumble Bee

By Laura Zuckerman

(Reuters) – An environmental group sued U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday for delaying a rule that would designate the rusty patched bumble bee as an endangered species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a branch of the Interior Department, in September proposed bringing the bee under federal safeguards.

The rule formalizing the listing of the vanishing pollinator, once widely found in the upper Midwest and Northeastern United States, was published in the Federal Register on Jan. 11 and was to take effect last Friday.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) said the listing has been delayed until March 21 as part of a broader freeze ordered by Trump’s White House on rules issued by the prior administration aimed at protecting public health and the environment.

The group argued in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that U.S. wildlife managers had violated the law by abruptly suspending the bumble bee listing without public notice or comment. They said the rule technically became final when it was published in the Federal Register.

The lawsuit seeks to have a judge declare that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acted unlawfully and to order the agency to rescind the rule delaying the bumble bee’s listing.

“The science is clear – this species is headed toward extinction, and soon. There is no legitimate reason to delay federal protections,” Natural Resources Defense Council senior attorney Rebecca Riley said in a statement.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could not immediately be reached for comment.

Bumble bees pollinate wildflowers and about a third of U.S. crops, from blueberries to tomatoes, according to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

The bee’s population and range have declined by more than 90 percent since the late 1990s due to disease, pesticides, climate change and habitat loss, according to wildlife officials.

The insect is one of 47 varieties of native bumble bees in the United States and Canada, more than a quarter of which face the risk of extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

In September, seven varieties of yellow-faced bees in Hawaii became the first such insects to be added to the U.S. list of endangered species because of losses due to habitat destruction, wildfires and the invasion of nonnative plants and insects.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho; Editing by Curtis Skinner)

Native tribes seek judgment against Army Corps over Dakota Access

NO trespassing sign

(Reuters) – The Native American tribes looking to stop the Dakota Access pipeline asked a judge to find that the Army Corps violated federal regulations when it recently granted the last permit needed for the project to be finished, according to a Tuesday court filing.

In a filing in U.S. District Court in Washington, Jan Hasselman, a lawyer with Earthjustice who represents the tribes, said the court should rule, in a partial summary judgment, that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated the National Environmental Policy Act and Clean Water Act by issuing the final permit.

That easement will allow the Dakota Access pipeline to be completed by tunneling under Lake Oahe, a reservoir that forms part of the Missouri River. It comes after Judge James Boasberg on Monday denied the request by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux for a temporary restraining order stopping the last stretch of construction.

Energy Transfer Partners is building the 1,170-mile (1,885 km) line, which will run from North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois. The last permit was denied in December and later subject to further environmental review, by the outgoing Obama administration.

After taking office last month, President Donald Trump ordered that steps be taken to expedite the permit. The Army Corps then elected not to undergo the additional environmental review and issued the permit last week.

The tribes’ legal options are narrowing, according to Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux.

The case is 1:16-cv-1534-JEB, U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C.

(Reporting by David Gaffen; Editing by Leslie Adler)