ALERT: United States: Department of Homeland Security Suspends Travel Ban (February 4, 2017)
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Alert – United States: Department of Homeland Security Suspends Travel Ban
According to CNN:
President Donald Trump’s government moved swiftly Saturday to comply with a federal judge’s order halting his immigration ban — even as Trump denounced the judge. The Department of Homeland Security announced it has suspended all actions to implement the immigration order and will resume standard inspections of travelers as it did prior to the signing of the travel ban.
Also, a State Department official tells CNN the department has reversed the cancellation of visas that were provisionally revoked following the President’s executive order last week — so long as those visas were not stamped or marked as canceled. The State Department has said fewer than 60,000 visas were revoked since the signing of the order. It was not immediately clear how many from that group will continue to be without their visas because their visas were physically canceled.
Following the judge’s ruling — before the government’s announcements Saturday morning — the International Air Transportation Association, a leading airline industry group, wrote to its members to follow procedures “as if the executive order never existed.”
The whirlwind turn of events set up the nation for a second straight weekend of widespread uncertainty over the controversial ban, this time with the administration on defense. Friday night, the White House announced the Justice Department would file an emergency motion to stop the halt, but it had yet to do so as of late Saturday morning.
Trump’s order bars citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US for 90 days, all refugees for 120 days and indefinitely halts refugees from Syria.
Federal Judge James Robart, a George W. Bush appointee who presides in Seattle, halted the enforcement of Trump’s order Friday night, effective nationwide.
Robart, ruling in a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Washington state and Minnesota who sought to stop the order, said the states “have met their burden of demonstrating that they face immediate and irreparable injury as a result of the signing and implementation of the Executive Order.” He said the order adversely affects residents in areas of education, employment, education and freedom to travel.
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