A United States federal judge has ruled that the administration of President Donald Trump cannot block approved refugees from entering the country under the guise of a wider travel ban.
US District Judge Jamal Whitehead ruled late on Monday that Trump’s June order barring people from 12 countries from entering the US expressly states that it will not stop people from seeking refugee status.
“In other words, by its plain terms, the Proclamation excludes refugees from its scope,” Whitehead wrote.
The ruling is the latest development in a dizzying number of court cases challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to radically restrict immigration through a raft of policies that have stretched the limits of executive power.
The judge ordered the administration to continue processing a group of 80 refugees who had already been through vetting and were “presumptively protected refugees” who were nonetheless turned back due to the travel ban.
That ban applies to 12 countries and expands on a similar effort pursued by Trump during his first term in office, when his so-called “Muslim ban” prompted widespread anger and faced legal challenges before being ultimately upheld by the conservative-majority Supreme Court.
The June order applies to countries such as Afghanistan, Yemen, Iran, and Sudan, as well as Haiti and Myanmar, among others.
The administration has also revoked existing legal status for scores of people from countries like Afghanistan and Haiti, throwing their future in the country into doubt and opening them up to the possibility of deportations to countries that experts say remain mired in conflict and unsafe conditions.
A US court temporarily paused an order by the Trump administration ending Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for Afghans living in the US on Monday, several hours before it was set to expire, extending that status by one week as the court deliberates on the issue further.
Trump suspended the US refugee admissions programme upon entering office at the beginning of his second term in January, leaving thousands of people who had already been cleared for admission, sometimes after years of an arduous bureaucratic and vetting process, in a state of limbo.
A handful of refugees and advocacy groups sued, and Whitehead ruled in February that the administration could not suspend a programme created and funded by Congress. A US Circuit court put that decision on hold in March, however, ruling that the president has wide latitude over the question of who may enter the country.
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