{"id":3917,"date":"2017-05-11T19:52:51","date_gmt":"2017-05-11T19:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/humanrights\/?p=3917"},"modified":"2025-08-04T10:27:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T17:27:22","slug":"columns-bob-ferguson-washingtons-top-lawyer-talks-travel-bans-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/humanrights\/2017\/05\/11\/columns-bob-ferguson-washingtons-top-lawyer-talks-travel-bans-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Columns Magazine: Bob Ferguson, Washington\u2019s top lawyer, talks travel bans and Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ferguson, ’89, became famous overnight when his office beat the president in court.<\/em><\/h4>\n

STORY BY QUINN RUSSELL BROWN FOR COLUMNS MAGAZINE<\/a>, MAY 6, 2017<\/p>\n

Bob Ferguson landed on the front page of newspapers across America thanks to Donald Trump. But Donald Trump wasn\u2019t thanking Bob Ferguson.<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s attorney general sued the president over the first version of his controversial travel ban, which targeted immigrants and green-card holders from seven majority-Muslim countries. The ban, which opponents often call a Muslim ban, was frozen as a result of the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

On Friday evening, Ferguson, \u201989, came back to campus for an event called \u201cChallenging Injustice Through the Courts,\u201d hosted by the UW Center for Human Rights (UWCHR). The attorney general received the center\u2019s inaugural Justice Award.<\/p>\n

UW President Ana Mari Cauce introduced Ferguson at the event. \u201cWhen we talk about David and Goliath, when we talk about truth to power, we talk about Bob Ferguson,\u201d Cauce said. \u201cAnd he won.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferguson treated Friday\u2019s audience to a handful of behind-the-scenes stories.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people said, \u2018Hey, Bob, that must have been a really hard decision to sue the president,\u2019\u201d Ferguson told the crowd. \u201cI recognize that this sounds a little bit counterintuitive to say, but it really wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferguson, a 52-year-old Democrat, was a political science major and ASUW president. He served on the King County Council and is an internationally rated chess master, twice winning the Washington State Chess Championship.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t the only UW grad involved in the travel ban case. Solicitor General Noah Purcell, \u201902, argued the state\u2019s position in court.\u00a0\u201cHe\u2019s the most brilliant lawyer I\u2019ve ever worked with,\u201d Ferguson said.<\/p>\n

The first travel ban took effect on Friday, Jan. 27, leaving a number of non-U.S. citizens stranded at airports around the country (13 people were detained at Sea-Tac International Airport). Ferguson and Purcell met on Saturday afternoon and decided to pursue the case in court. They filed the suit on Monday.<\/p>\n

A court date with a judge was quickly scheduled for the following Friday\u2014just a week after the ban began. On Tuesday, Ferguson asked the lawyers on his team who they thought should argue before the judge. \u201cThat\u2019s Thursday\u2019s problem,\u201d Purcell casually responded. And that meant Purcell was the one to do it.<\/p>\n

Ferguson, meanwhile, became that week\u2019s foil for the president\u2014the audacious attorney general taking on Trump. A representative for Anderson Cooper even called his mother looking to get ahold of him. \u201cI\u2019m not sure if they thought I still lived with my mom,\u201d Ferguson told the crowd, laughing, \u201cbut they were very resourceful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"UW<\/p>\n

UW President Ana Mari Cauce and Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson pose with UW Center for Human Rights Director Angelina Snodgrass Godoy and student awardees (Photo: Quinn Russell Brown \/ Columns Magazine)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Trump administration later put forth a revised ban, Executive Order 13780, that was frozen after the state of Hawaii sued (Washington also challenged that order in a separate case).<\/p>\n

Ferguson\u2019s work earned him a spot in this year\u2019s Time Magazine 100<\/a>, an international list of political influencers and pop-culture pioneers. The profile was written by actor and activist George Takei, who says that watching Ferguson at work took him back to his days as a political prisoner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was reminded of when I was 5 years old and imprisoned behind American barbed-wire fences in a Japanese-American internment camp in Arkansas,\u201d Takei writes in the profile. \u201cEvery morning at the school, in a black, tar-paper barrack, we began the day by pledging allegiance to the flag: \u2018With liberty and justice for all.\u2019 Bob Ferguson clearly believes everyone deserves those guarantees, no matter their background.\u201d<\/p>\n

Housed in the Jackson School, the UWCHR was established by the state Legislature in 2009<\/a>. President Cauce advocated for the center back when she was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences: She met with Professor Angelina Godoy, the center\u2019s director, and writer Peter Jackson, son of the late Sen. Henry M. Jackson, as they worked to build momentum for the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no way I could have imagined how important the center would be today,\u201d Cauce said. In 2015, the center sued the CIA for withholding documents in a human rights case. On Friday night, Godoy honored five students who are doing human rights research across the globe.<\/p>\n

Ferguson told the crowd that his office\u2019s lawsuit, Washington v. Trump, is already being taught by law professors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows that the president\u2019s powers are not unchecked, that we have limits, that we are a nation of laws,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I went to law school: to make a difference in the lives of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Correction:<\/b> An earlier version of this story stated that the UW was a party in the lawsuit. While the UW was essential to the case, it was not a named party.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ferguson, ’89, became famous overnight when his office beat the president in court. STORY BY QUINN RUSSELL BROWN FOR COLUMNS MAGAZINE, MAY 6, 2017 Bob Ferguson landed on the front page of newspapers across America thanks to Donald Trump. But Donald Trump wasn\u2019t thanking Bob Ferguson. Washington\u2019s attorney general sued the president over the first<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":492,"featured_media":3976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13,362,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2016-2017","category-human-rights-at-home","category-immigrant-rights-observatory","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nColumns Magazine: Bob Ferguson, Washington\u2019s top lawyer, talks travel bans and Trump - Center for Human Rights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jsis.washington.edu\/humanrights\/2017\/05\/11\/columns-bob-ferguson-washingtons-top-lawyer-talks-travel-bans-trump\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Columns Magazine: Bob Ferguson, Washington\u2019s top lawyer, talks travel bans and Trump - Center for Human Rights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ferguson, ’89, became famous overnight when his office beat the president in court. 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