US President Donald Trump has come out swinging against a last-minute legal block to his revised travel ban, calling it an "unprecedented judicial overreach".
Hawaii District Judge Derrick Watson made the ruling on Wednesday (local time) which applies nationwide just hours before it was to come into force.
The ban was a re-worked proposal from the President's original ban, which placed temporary restrictions on seven majority Muslim countries.
The major difference was the dropping of Iraq from the list of seven countries, leaving Syria, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya affected.
It no longer applied to permanent residents, those with valid green cards, dual nationals not from the six countries, or anyone already granted asylum in the US.
Both versions of the Executive Order sparked major disruptions, protests and legal action.
The new ban was set to take effect at 12:01am on Thursday (local time).
The initial Executive Order, issued in Mr Trump's first days, was blocked by a federal court in Seattle.
It caused Mr Trump to launch a major attack on the judiciary.
After saying he had to be "nice" about the courts "otherwise I'll get criticised for speaking poorly about our courts", he continued that attack at a rally in Nashville, Tennessee, telling the crowd about the "bad news".
His announcement was met with boos from the crowd.
"The order he blocked was a watered down version of the first order which was also blocked by another judge and should have never been blocked to start with.
"This new order was tailored to the dictates of the ninth circuit's, in my opinion, flawed ruling. This is the opinion of many, an unprecedented judicial overreach," he exclaimed.
He vowed to fight the decision in the courts and take it "as far as it needs to go", including the Supreme Court.
"We are going to win and we're going to keep our citizens safe," he said.
He suggested they should revert to the original Executive Order and take that through the court system.
He also took the opportunity to take a dig at former presidential rival Hillary Clinton.
Mr Trump claimed the constitution gives the president the power when "he or she deems - fortunately it will not be Hillary she - it to be in the national interests of the country".
Newshub.
