Appeals court allows Trump administration to suspend approval of new
refugees amid lawsuit
[March 26, 2025]
By LINDSAY WHITEHURST and GENE JOHNSON
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration can stop approving new
refugees for entry into the U.S. but has to allow in people who were
conditionally accepted before the president suspended the nation’s
refugee admissions system, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The order narrowed a ruling from a federal judge in Seattle who found
the program should be restarted.
The three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the
president has the power to restrict people from entering the country,
pointing to a 2018 Supreme Court ruling upholding President Donald
Trump's ban on travel from several mostly Muslim countries during his
first term.
Refugees who were conditionally approved by the government before
Trump's order halting the refugee program should still be allowed to
resettle, the judges found.
The panel ruled on an emergency appeal of a ruling from U.S. District
Judge Jamal Whitehead who found that the president's authority to
suspend refugee admissions is not limitless and that Trump cannot
nullify the law passed by Congress establishing the program.
Whitehead pointed to reports of refugees stranded in dangerous places,
families separated from relatives in the U.S. and people sold all their
possessions for travel to the U.S. that was later canceled.
Melissa Keaney, an attorney with the International Refugee Assistance
Project, applauded the portions of the order that the appeals court left
intact.
“We welcome this continued relief for tens of thousands of refugees who
will now have the opportunity to restart their lives in the United
States,” she said.
Whitehead, who was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden, also
issued a second order Tuesday blocking the cancellation of refugee
resettlement contracts.
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President Donald Trump waves to the media as he walks on the South
Lawn of the White House, in Washington, Saturday, March 22, 2025.
(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Trump’s order said the refugee program — a form of legal migration to
the U.S. for people displaced by war, natural disaster or persecution —
would be suspended because cities and communities had been taxed by
“record levels of migration” and didn’t have the ability to “absorb
large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees.” There are
600,000 people being processed to come to the U.S. as refugees around
the world, according to the administration.
The Justice Department argued that the order was well within Trump’s
authority.
Despite long-standing support from both major political parties for
accepting thoroughly vetted refugees, the program has become politicized
in recent years. Trump also temporarily halted it during his first term,
and then dramatically decreased the number of refugees who could enter
the U.S. each year.
The plaintiffs said the president had not shown how the entry of these
refugees would be detrimental to the U.S.
They include the International Refugee Assistance Project on behalf of
Church World Service, the Jewish refugee resettlement agency HIAS,
Lutheran Community Services Northwest, and individual refugees and
family members. They said their ability to provide critical services to
refugees, including those already in the U.S., has been severely
inhibited by Trump’s order.
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Johnson reported from Tacoma, Washington.
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