Google, Uber, Twitter, Netflix & FB band up to challenge Trump travel ban

However, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft do not appear to be party to the brief

The Trump administration could soon be facing another legal spoiler with Google, Facebook, Uber, Twitter, Netflix and other prominent tech companies planning to file a legal brief opposing the President's travel ban, reported the Washington Post while citing people familiar with the issue.

However, the report said that Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft were not party to the brief.  

Citing sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the report said that Pinterest, Yelp, Square, Reddit, Kickstarter, Github, Glassdoor, Box, Mozilla, Dropbox, Twilio, Zynga, Medium, Pinterest, and Salesforce were some of the other companies which could be backing the filing. The filing was still being finalised as of Sunday.

The Washington Post accessed a draft of the filing, which said that President Donald Trump's entry ban – which targeted individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries, barring them from entering the US for at least 90 days, and suspended the US refugee programme – was discriminatory. The amicus brief, the report added, is expected to be filed with the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The possible legal challenge comes at a time when, on Sunday, a federal appeals court rejected a request by the Justice Department to immediately restore President Trump’s targeted travel ban, deepening a legal showdown over his authority to tighten the nation’s borders in the name of protecting Americans from terrorism. In the legal back and forth over the travel ban, the United States District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco said a reply from the Trump administration was due on Monday.

The administration was fighting Seattle federal judge James Robart's decision on Friday that imposed a nationwide, albeit temporary, halt on Trump's travel ban order. 

The saga began on January 27 when Trump issued a blanket entry ban on all refugees, as well as on travellers, from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. For his part, the President took to Twitter, in what has long been his preferred method of communication, and blasted the federal courts for a second day in a row after his efforts to implement the travel ban were suspended and warned that the judiciary could be placing Americans in "peril".

Both Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his Google counterpart Sundar Pichai have criticised the contentious entry ban order. 

Commenting upon the ban in a Facebook post, Zuckerberg had said, "Like many of you, I'm concerned about the impact of the recent executive orders signed by President Trump. We need to keep this country safe, but we should do that by focusing on people who actually pose a threat."