Trump's revised travel ban dealt first
court setback
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[March 11, 2017]
By Steve Gorman
(Reuters) - A federal judge in Wisconsin
dealt the first legal blow to President Donald Trump's revised travel
ban on Friday, barring enforcement of the policy to deny U.S. entry to
the wife and child of a Syrian refugee already granted asylum in the
United States.
The temporary restraining order, granted by U.S. District Judge William
Conley in Madison, applies only to the family of the Syrian refugee, who
brought the case anonymously to protect the identities of his wife and
daughter, still living in the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo.
But it represents the first of several challenges brought against
Trump's newly amended executive order, issued on March 6 and due to go
into effect on March 16, to draw a court ruling in opposition to its
enforcement.
Conley, chief judge of the federal court in Wisconsin's western district
and an appointee of former President Barack Obama, concluded the
plaintiff "has presented some likelihood of success on the merits" of
his case and that his family faces "significant risk of irreparable
harm" if forced to remain in Syria.
The plaintiff, a Sunni Muslim, fled Syria to the United States in 2014
to "escape near-certain death" at the hands of sectarian military forces
fighting the Syrian government in Aleppo, according to his lawsuit.
He subsequently obtained asylum for his wife and their only surviving
child, a daughter, and their application had cleared the security
vetting process and was headed for final processing when it was halted
by Trump's original travel ban on Jan. 27.
That executive order sought to ban admission to the United States of
citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries - Iran, Libya, Somalia,
Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Iraq - for 120 days and to suspend entry of all
refugees indefinitely.
The original travel ban, which caused widespread chaos and protests at
airports when first implemented, was rescinded after the state of
Washington won a nationwide federal court order blocking further
enforcement of the policy.
[to top of second column] |
Immigration activists, including members of the DC Justice for
Muslims Coalition, rally against the Trump administration's new ban
against travelers from six Muslim-majority nations, outside of the
U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington, U.S.,
March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Thayer
The modified executive order reduced the number of excluded counties
- removing Iraq from the list - and lifted the indefinite refugee
travel ban for Syrians. But opponents from several states have gone
to court seeking to halt its implementation as well.
"The court appreciates that there may be important differences
between the original executive order, and the revised executive
order," Conley wrote in his decision. "As the order applies to the
plaintiff here, however, the court finds his claims have at least
some chance of prevailing for the reasons articulated by other
courts."
In a related development on Friday, the federal judge in Seattle who
imposed a nationwide injunction on enforcement of the original
travel ban refused a request to apply that order to the revised
policy, saying that lawyers from states opposed to the measure
needed to file more extensive court papers.
(Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional
reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York and Sharon Bernstein in
Sacramento, California; Editing by Sandra Maler and Mary Milliken)
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