Trump administration ordered to admit thousands of refugees
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to allow about 12,000 additional refugees into the country, rejecting the White House's argument that approved migrants can be turned away if they did not arrive in the U.S. by early February.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) argued a previous court order meant the government only had to accept about 160 refugees who would be en route to the U.S. by Feb. 3, but U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead rebuffed that interpretation.
"It requires not just reading between the lines, but hallucinating new text that simply is not there," he wrote Monday. "It is surprising that there could be any disagreement about the meaning of a judicial order that articulates three specific criteria in plain, straightforward language."
Faith-based refugee aid groups filed a lawsuit in February after President Trump issued an executive order that indefinitely suspended the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program (USRAP), created by Congress in 1980 for people fleeing persecution, wars or natural disasters in their home countries.
USRAP is more rigorous than the asylum system that thousands of migrants have used to cross the U.S. borders, and it can take years for applicants to receive approval.
The initial lawsuit argued that Trump's order was illegal because it sidestepped Congress, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the president has broad authority over who is allowed into the country. However, it directed the federal government to continue processing previously approved refugees who had "arranged and confirmable travel plans to the United States" by the time Trump issued his Jan. 20 executive order that suspended the program.
The DOJ set a two-week deadline from that date for refugees to travel to the U.S., but the refugee aid groups argued that arrangements only had to be made and not immediately underway. Whitehead agreed on Monday.
"Had the Ninth Circuit intended to impose a two-week limitation — one that would reduce the protected population from about 12,000 to 160 individuals — it would have done so explicitly," the judge wrote.