U. S. agents may have improperly enforced travel ban
‘ Chaotic’ days followed Trump’s announcement
Customs and Border Protection agents were “caught by surprise” by President Trump’s original travel ban against majority- Muslim nations and may have violated two separate court orders while implementing it, a government report released Friday concluded.
A Department of Homeland Security ( DHS) Inspector General report chronicled the “chaotic” days after Trump signed the travel ban into effect during a ceremony at the Pentagon last Jan. 27.
The ban has been the subject of dozens of federal lawsuits. The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will hear one of those challenges to decide whether the ban is constitutional.
Trump’s order instituted a 120-
day ban on refugees entering the USA and a 90- day ban for most citizens of Libya, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The order indefinitely barred any Syrians from entering the USA.
From the first day, the report found, the order caused widespread confusion.
Only two senior Homeland Security officials saw a draft of the travel ban before Trump signed it. Most employees heard about it fromnews reports in the days leading up to the signing. The report found that Customs and Border Protection leadership received the most detailed account of the upcoming ban “from Congressional staffers who apparently were better informed.”
The executive order went into immediate effect the moment Trump signed it, but Homeland Security leadership was caught off guard. John Kelly, the president’s chief of staff who was then the secretary of Homeland Security, was traveling at the time of the signing, forcing his deputy to lead a conference call to issue marching orders to his agents around the globe.
Even during that conference call, according to the report, Homeland Security leaders were unsure whether the order was in effect and did not even have a copy of the order.
Trump’s order wasn’t widely circulated to Homeland Security until nearly two hours after he signed it. Even then, the scope of the executive order was a “source of confusion.”
That kicked off what the report dubbed “The Long Weekend” filled with protest sat U.S. airport sand a slew of lawsuits challenging the ban in federal courts across the country.
Border agents began processing incoming traveler sat U.S. airports, preventing some travelers who were midair during the bill signing from clearing customs. Other border agents who pre- screen travelers at foreign airports started preventing nationals of the seven targeted countries from boarding U.S .- bound flights.
The report found that at least 30 people trying to enter the USA via land borders and U.S .- bound flights were improperly prevented, possibly violating a ruling by U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn. Donnelly prevented border agents from enforcing the travel ban, but the report found that several agents stationed at foreign airports disregarded her ruling.