Administration seeks ban ruling’s reversal
White House asks Supreme Court to nix judge’s order.
The Trump WASHINGTON — administration is seeking to close a legal window opened for tens of thousands of refugees to enter the United States, appealing a federal judge’s ruling directly to the Supreme Court.
U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson on Thursday ordered the government to allow travel to the United States by refugees formally working with resettlement agencies. His order also vastly expanded the list of family relationships to U.S. residents that refugees and visitors from six Muslim-majority countries can use to qualify for travel.
The Supreme Court in June ruled that refugees and travelers with a “bona fide relationship” with a person or an entity in the U.S. should be permitted into the country. The justices did not define those relationships but said they could include a “close” relative, a job offer or admission to a college or university.
The Trump administration defined the relationships as parent, spouse, fiance, son, daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or sibling.
Watson enlarged that group to include grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-inlaw, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins.
In its appeal filed late Friday, the Justice Department said Watson’s broader interpretation “empties the court’s decision of meaning, as it encompasses not just ‘close’ family members, but virtually all family members.”
Only the Supreme Court can decide such issues surrounding the travel ban, the Justice Department said. On Saturday, it asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to put Watson’s ruling on hold pending a Supreme Court ruling.
Watson’s ruling could help more than 24,000 refugees already vetted and approved by the United States but barred by the administration’s 120-day freeze on refugee admissions, said Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, a resettlement agency.
“Many of them had already sold all of their belongings to start their new lives in safety,” she said. “This decision gives back hope to so many who would otherwise be stranded indefinitely.”
There is no timetable for the Supreme Court to act on the appeal, but the Justice Department is seeking quick action.
“Once again, we are faced with a situation in which a single federal district court has undertaken by a nationwide injunction to micromanage decisions of the co-equal executive branch related to our national security,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. “By this decision, the district court has improperly substituted its policy preferences for the national security judgments of the executive branch in a time of grave threats.”
The administration has lost most legal challenges on the travel ban, which applies to citizens of Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Yemen, but the Supreme Court’s June ruling had allowed a limited version of it to take effect.
Hawaii Attorney General Douglas S. Chin, who challenged the administration’s interpretation of the ruling, aid Watson’s ruling made clear “that the U.S. government may not ignore the scope of the partial travel ban as it sees fit.”