ANOTHER SETBACK FOR TRUMP ON TRAVEL BAN

GRANDPARENTS OF PEOPLE IN US SHOULD BE EXEMPT , SAYS JUDGE

A US federal judge weakened the terms of the Donald Trump administration’s controversial travel ban on visitors from six majority-Muslim countries, dealing another legal setback to the government.

Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii ruled on Thursday that grandparents and some other relatives of people in the US should be exempt from the clampdown, saying the terms of the ban as enforced defied common sense.

His decision was hailed as a victory by opponents of the ban, who say it singles out Muslims. The administration insists the restrictions are necessary to keep out terrorists.

The Supreme Court had allowed part of the ban to go into effect on June 29, putting an end to five months of political skirmishes in the lower courts.

Specifically, the court allowed a 90-day ban on visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and a 120-day ban on refugees, with exceptions for people with “close family relationships” in the US.

The Trump administration defined that to be parents, spouses, children, sons- and daughters-in-law, siblings and step- and half-siblings.

But Watson found that “the government’s narrowly defined list finds no support in the careful language of the Supreme Court or even in the immigration statutes on which the Government relies.

Watson ordered homeland security and the state department not to enforce the ban on “grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins of persons in the United States.”