Appeals court rejects Trump’s attempt to bar most refugees
NEW YORK: A US appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s effort to temporarily bar most refugees from entering the country, ruling that those who have relationships with a resettlement agency should be exempt from an executive order banning refugees.
A three-judge 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals panel also ruled that grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins of legal US residents should be exempted from President Donald Trump’s order, which banned travellers from countries.
The ruling is the latest legal blow to the President’s sweeping executive order barring travellers from Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days, which the Republican president said was necessary for national security.
The Justices said that the government did not persuasively explain why the travel ban should be enforced against close relatives of people from the six countries or refugees with guarantees from resettlement agencies. The 3-0 ruling takes effect in five days.
The US Supreme Court ruled in June that Trump’s ban could be implemented on a limited basis, but should not be applied to people with “bona fide” relationships to people or entities in the United States. The government took a narrow view of that interpretation, which the state of Hawaii challenged in court. A lower court judge sided with Hawaii, and the 9th Circuit judges upheld that view.
“It is hard to see how a grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, sibling-in-law, or cousin can be considered to have no bona fide relationship with their relative in the United States,” the court said.
The court also rejected the administration’s argument that the written assurances provided by resettlement agencies obligating them to provide services for specific refugees is not a bona fide relationship.
The agencies’ advance preparation and expenditure of resources for each refugee “supports the district court’s determination that a bona fide relationship with the refugee exists,” the decision said.