Seattle (AP) – A judge ordered the Trump administration on Monday to admit some 12,000 refugees to the United States under a court order partially blocking the president's efforts for suspend the country's refugee admission program.
Order of the American district judge Jamal Whitehead followed the arguments of the Ministry of Justice and the refugee resettlement agencies on how to interpret Decision of the Federal Court of Appeal This has considerably reduced a previous decision of Whitehead.
During a hearing last week, the administration said that it should only have to deal with 160 refugees in the country and that it would probably call on any order forcing it to admit thousands of people. But the judge rejected the government's analysis, claiming that it demanded “not only to read between the lines” of the decision of the 9th circuit, “but mind -blowing a new text which is simply not there.”
“This court will not entertain the rewriting focused on the government's results of a judicial order which clearly says what it says,” wrote Whitehead on Monday. “The government is free, of course, to request additional clarifications on the ninth circuit. But the government is not free to disobey the statutory and constitutional law – and the direct orders of this court and the ninth circuit – while seeking such clarification. ”
The refugee program, created by Congress in 1980, is a form of legal migration in the United States for people displaced by war, natural disaster or persecution – a process that often takes years and involves significant verification. It is different from asylum, by which people newly arrived in the United States can request permission to stay because they fear persecution in their country of origin.
After starting his second term on January 20, President Donald Trump published an executive decree suspending the program.
Who triggered a trial By individual refugees whose efforts to reinstall themselves in the United States were interrupted as well as the main groups of assistance for refugees, which argued that they had to dismiss staff. The groups said that the administration has frozen funding for the processing of refugee requests abroad and providing support, such as short-term rental assistance for those already in the United States
Whitehead, one named in 2023 of former president Joe Biden, Trump's blocked applicationSaying that this was equivalent to “effective cancellation of the will of the congress” in the implementation of the country's refugee admission program.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals American largely suspended Whitehead's decision in March, concluding that the administration was likely to win the case given the wide authority of the president to determine who is authorized to enter the country.
But the Court of Appeal also said that the government should continue to deal with those who had already been approved to travel to the United States, some of whom had turned their lives abroad by selling goods or leaving their jobs. These people had relied on the promises made by the federal government that they would be admitted, the court said.
The Court of Appeal said that the government should continue to deal with refugees who had already “arranged and confirm” travel plans before January 20 to come to the United States, the Ministry of Justice has put the number of refugees in this category at around 12,000.
During a hearing last week on how to interpret and apply the decision of the Court of Appeal, the lawyer for the Ministry of Justice, David Kim, said that the government had meant that the only refugees that should be treated for entry to the United States are those who were to go to the United States in the two weeks after Trump's order. There were much fewer refugees who respected this definition – only 160, said the ministry.
The judge and lawyers for refugee resettlement organizations disagreed with the reading of the government. They noted that nothing in the order of the 9th circuit suggested a two -week window. Instead, said Whitehead, the prescription should apply to all the refugees who had been approved to come to the United States and had established travel plans – no matter where this trip was planned.
Whitehead ordered the administration in the next seven days to instruct agency offices and staff, including American embassies, to resume the treatment of refugees protected by the court order. He also told the government to immediately take measures to facilitate admission to the United States for refugees whose authorizations, including medical and security authorizations, have not yet expired.
