President Donald Trump speaks at the American Center of Mobility, Wednesday, March 15, 2017, in Ypsilanti Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Hours before Mr Trump’s revised executive order was due to take effect today, a federal judge in Hawaii issued a nationwide restraining order, suspending key elements of it.

Judge Derrick Watson used Mr Trump’s own words against him, saying his statements during last year’s presidential campaign were “significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus driving the promulgation of the executive order and its related predecessor”.

Judge Watson was ruling on a case put forward by the state of Hawaii, which argued Mr Trump’s executive order violates the establishment clause of the US Constitution. That clause prevents discrimination on the basis of religion.

President Donald Trump. Pic: APSource:AP

Mr Trump’s order temporarily banned immigration from six majority-Muslim countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. It also suspended America’s refugee program for 120 days.

The administration argued it was targeting terrorism, not Muslims, and pointed out that many Muslim nations were left off the list. Judge Watson dismissed that argument.

“The illogic of the government’s contentions is palpable. The notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed,” he wrote in a 43-page ruling.

“Equally flawed is the notion that the executive order cannot be found to have targeted Islam because it applies to all individuals in the six referenced countries. It is undisputed ... that these countries have overwhelmingly Muslim populations that range from 90.7 per cent to 99.8 per cent. It would therefore be no paradigmatic leap to conclude that targeting these countries likewise targets Islam.”

President Trump. Pic: APSource:AP

Crucially, Judge Watson used Mr Trump’s own words on the campaign trail to inform his decision, citing the president’s original call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”.

He also dug up several old comments from TV interviews. For instance, speaking to NBC in July, Mr Trump openly referred to a “Muslim ban”. “The Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into extreme vetting from certain areas of the world,” he said. When asked to specify whether the “Muslim ban still stands”, he replied: “It’s called extreme vetting.”

Perhaps most tellingly, Judge Watson cited the revelation from Mr Trump’s close confidant Rudy Giuliani that the president had asked him to find a way to do the Muslim ban “legally”.

“These plainly-worded statements, made in the months leading up to and contemporaneous with the signing of the executive order, and in many cases made by the executive himself, betray the executive order’s stated secular purpose,” the judge wrote.

The legal setback an embarrassing case of deja vu for the president, who abandoned his original travel ban after it was similarly shot down by the courts in February. He issued a more narrowly defined order on March 6 in the hope it would fare better.

The administration can and likely will appeal Judge Watson’s decision. For the time being, however, the travel ban cannot be enforced.