Trump administration could begin enforcing travel ban today
ATLANTA — The Trump administration could begin enforcing elements of its travel ban across the nation as early as today, but many questions remain unanswered about how it will be done.
That murkiness is alarming refugee and immigrant rights advocates, who are calling on the government to clarify how it will implement the directive.
In a statement released Wednesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center and several other advocacy groups said the Trump administration should “provide guidance to protect the rights of immigrants and travelers to the United States, and to limit the inevitable confusion and chaos that will arise out of implementation” of the executive order.
The partial travel ban could carry significant consequences for Georgia, a rapidly diversifying state with the world’s busiest airport. Nearly a tenth of Georgia’s population is foreign-born, and several thousand refugees from around the world are resettled in the state each year.
The U.S. State Department announced the timing of the travel ban this week, saying it would begin implementing the directive 72 hours after the court issued its ruling, which is today. A spokeswoman for the agency told reporters Tuesday that the State Department was still consulting with the Justice Department about the meaning of a key part of the court’s order. At issue is an exception the court has created for certain travelers.
In its 13-page ruling, the court partially granted the Trump administration’s request to lift preliminary injunctions against the directive and let it block visitors from six Muslimmajority countries for 90 days, freeze the nation’s refugee resettlement program for 120 days and limit the number of refugees who may be brought here this fiscal year to 50,000.
But the court said those restrictions cannot be applied to people with a “bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” In its ruling, the court gave some examples of visitors and refugees the reinstated travel ban would not apply to while it considers arguments in the case: people who are seeking to live with or visit family members here, workers who have accepted jobs from U.S. companies and lecturers invited to address American audiences.
“Bona fide relationship — we don’t have a definition here at the State Department for that yet,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters in Washington on Tuesday. “None of the agencies has that definition just yet. That we will be working to get; that I anticipate will take a couple days to get.”
Nauert also confirmed that refugees who are scheduled to travel to the U.S. through July 6 can proceed to do so.
“Beyond July 6, we are not totally certain how that will work because, again, this is in flux, this is in progress, this is a new development as the Supreme Court just spoke to this [Monday],” she said.
Further, Nauert said the government has already resettled about 49,000 refugees in the U.S. this fiscal year and the 50,000 cap cited in Trump’s executive order should be reached “within the next week or so.”
“Refugees with bona fide ties — which we’re still working on that definition — will not be subject to that cap,” she said.
The Department of Homeland Security — which includes U.S. Customs and Border Protection — told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday it is consulting with the Justice and State departments “on the way forward for implementation of the executive order based on the Supreme Court’s ruling” and will “release additional information tomorrow.”
In a separate opinion they issued Monday, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch raised concerns the court’s exceptions could trigger more legal challenges.
“I fear that the court’s remedy will prove unworkable,” Thomas, a Georgia native, wrote in their dissenting opinion. “Today’s compromise will burden executive officials with the task of deciding — on peril of contempt — whether individuals from the six affected nations who wish to enter the United States have a sufficient connection to a person or entity in this country.”
Thomas added: “The compromise also will invite a flood of litigation until this case is finally resolved on the merits, as parties and courts struggle to determine what exactly constitutes a ‘bona fide relationship,’ who precisely has a ‘credible claim’ to that relationship, and whether the claimed relationship was formed ‘simply to avoid’” the travel ban.
Opponents have argued the president’s directive amounts to a ban on Muslims and therefore violates the First Amendment’s prohibition on government establishment of religion, a charge the government has denied. Trump has said his travel ban is aimed at preventing terrorist attacks in the U.S.
“As president,” he said in praising the court’s decision Monday, “I cannot allow people into our country who want to do us harm. I want people who can love the United States and all of its citizens, and who will be hardworking and productive.”
Refugee resettlement agencies are now scrambling to determine how the partial travel ban will affect their clients, many of whom are fleeing deprivation and violence around the world.
Frances McBrayer, senior director of refugee resettlement services for Catholic Charities Atlanta, said the court’s decision “will continue to put the U.S. refugee program in a state of uncertainty and will leave many people in very dangerous situations.”