Meanwhile, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said this week he was amazed that a federal judge “sitting on an island in the Pacific” had the power to halt President Trump’s ban on refugees and travelers from six majority-Muslim nations. Sessions was referring to U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson of Hawaii, who ruled in March that Trump’s executive order violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which bars discrimination on religious grounds.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions: “I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional powers.”

Attorney General Sessions’s comments drew condemnation from Hawaii’s congressional delegation. Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono accused Sessions of “dog whistle politics,” tweeting, “Hawaii was built on the strength of diversity & immigrant experiences- including my own. Jeff Sessions’ comments are ignorant & dangerous.”