Trump’s immigration order: US judge blocks deportations
NEW YORK: President Donald Trump’s controversial immigration order against people from seven Muslimmajority countries on Sunday hit a roadblock as a US judge issued an emergency order temporarily barring authorities from deporting refugees and other visa holders who have been detained.
US District Judge Ann Donnelly in New York issued the emergency order after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a petition on behalf of two Iraqi men detained at the John F Kennedy International Airport as the immigration ban took effect triggering protests at major airports across the country.
Judge Donnelly, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, ordered that the government could not remove “individuals with refugee applications approved by US Citizenship and Immigration Services as part of the US Refugee Admissions Programme, holders of valid immigrant and non-immigrant visas, and other individuals from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen legally authorised to enter the United States.”
The judge ordered the government to provide lists of all those detained at US airports since the measure went into effect.
The judge said that sending those travellers back to their home countries following Trump’s order exposes them to “substantial and irreparable injury.”
The order barred US border agents from removing anyone who arrived in the US with a valid visa from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
It also covered anyone with an approved refugee application.
President Trump on Saturday ordered “extreme vetting” of people entering the US from seven Muslim-majority countries and banned the entry of Syrian refugees until further notice, as part of new mea- sures to “keep radical Islamic terrorists” out of America.
The countries impacted are Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia.
The controversial move, signed a week after he was sworn- in as the President, fulfills the vow Trump made on the campaign trail to limit Muslim immigration to the US. Welcoming the federal judge’s ruling, ACLU’S Immigrants Rights Project Deputy Director Lee Gelernt said, “This ruling preserves the status quo and ensures that people who have been granted permission to be in this country are not illegally removed off US soil.”
NEW YORK: Hundreds of thousands of people gathered at airports across the US to protest the ban announced by President Donald Trump on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, extending solidarity to those affected as chaos and fear gripped individuals trying to enter the country.
As news of immigrants, even those holding green cards, being held and banned from flying into the US and entering the country spread, people started gathering at nations airports, holding banners opposing Trumps action.
For hours, the crowds stood outside the arrival terminal of citys busiest John F Kennedy international airport, raising slogans blasting Trumps order suspending entry of all refugees to the US for 120 days, barring Syrian refugees indefinitely and blocking entry into the country for 90 days for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The ban impacted several individuals, who had valid US visas and green cards and who had travelled abroad for work or on personal visits. Similar scenes of chaos and protests quickly poured in from other key ports of entry in Boston, Los Angeles and in Houston.
Hapless individuals, whose family members were stuck at airports or were not allowed to board flights to the US took to social media to vent their anger and frustration. “three weeks ago my wife and my newborn daughter went to Iran so that she can visit her grandparents for the first time. It is not clear they can come back to the US. And this feeling eats me alive,” an individual Amin Karbasi, who one person pointed out was a professor at Yale University, wrote on Twitter. Lawyers began to throng the countrys airports, offering to provide legal assistance to individuals and families who were detained at the airports.