Judge’s partial lifting of Trump ban gives some refugees hope

Associated Press

SEATTLE

After hearing heartbreaking stories of refugees who have struggled to reconnect with their families and listening to the plight of others who strive to leave dangerous situations, a federal judge said he would try to issue a ruling on a motion to block a Trump administration ban on refugees before Christmas.

Late on the day before Christmas Eve, U.S. District Judge James Robart released a 65-page order that gave relief to both groups: He granted a nationwide injunction that blocks the administration’s restrictions on the process of reuniting refugee families and partially lifted a ban on refugees from 11 mostly Muslim countries.

Robart limited that part of the injunction to refugees who have a bona fide relationship with people or entities in the U.S., but said refugees who have formal agreements with refugee resettlement agencies or humanitarian organizations constitutes such a relationship.

President Donald Trump restarted the refugee program in October “with enhanced vetting capabilities.” The new executive order banned entry of spouses and minor children of refugees who have already settled in the U.S., referred to as “follow-to-join” refugees, and suspended the refugee program for people coming from 11 countries, nine of which are mostly Muslim.

But ACLU and Jewish Family Service lawyers said the process for implementing the ban violated the law.