A recent move by a federal judge in New York mitigated the effects of President Trump’s recent ban on immigrants from seven Muslim countries. Trump’s ban barred entry into the United States for people of these countries for 90 days and barred refugees indefinitely. For US greencard holders from these countries, this means that while they will not be forced to leave the US during the ban, they will not be allowed re-entry. This created a immediate crisis for greencard holders and other visitors to the US from these countries who were en route to the US or had already arrived. Many were detained at airports for hours on end, while others were denied flight entry. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the appeals of these people will be evaluated individually by the Department (Shear, 2017).
While people worldwide stood in the streets and in front of airports to protest Trump’s decision, others were busy preparing cases against the legality of Trump’s decision. Lawyers for the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) were preparing material for an impromptu hearing with a New York judge over the fate of two Iraqi immigrants who were threatened with deportation. While New York Judge Ann Donnolley made the first ruling, Massachusetts Federal Judge, Alison Burroughs, also ruled in the favor of legal immigrants. She said that deporting these individuals would cause “irreparable harm” (Dungca, 2017). Her ruling supported those of other judges in the eastern United States, and most recently, a California judge who suspended the ban in favor of 28 Yemeni immigrants (Rubin, 2017).
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Essentially the rulings of these judges only guarantee that US greencard holders who were detained at US airports were allowed to leaved the airport. So far, no judges have commented on the Constitutionality of Trump’s executive order or made large rulings about the fate of immigrants and refugees from the banned countries. These rulings are needed with haste, however, as Trump’s ban of all but refugees is set for 120 days and citizens of the other countries are to be banned for 90 days. The executive order states that this will give the new administration time to create a better vetting process for people from these countries wanting to enter the US.
Other questions that judges may address is what the overall fate of current greencard holders from the seven banned countries will be. So far, other than stating that the greencard holders will not be allowed re-entry into the US during the ban, the Trump administration has left no clue as to what their fate after the ban will be. Federal Judges thus far have not responded well to the treatment of greencard holders. Judge Burroughs has stated that she finds it unconstitutional for any legal immigrant to be either detained or removed from the US, but no other judges have stepped forward with similar claims (Dungca, 2017).
Another question that will likely be addressed by Federal Judges is the enforcement of the ban. Reports so far suggest that enforcement has been uneven and haphazard. Yet, Watkins and Vogue of CNN report that Trump’s administration remains vehement. “A White House spokesperson defended the order Sunday, saying: ‘It is the right and duty of the President to do everything in his legal and constitutional power to protect the American people,'” they report (2017).
While in this instance Federal Judges’ rulings were able to help a handful of immigrants, they have not done much in the way of righting what the UN and many other human rights organizations have been calling a great injustice. Interestingly, no judges so far have commented on whether or not Trump’s ban will actually improve national security. Instead, the only comments have been on whether or not the ban was in the interests of individual immigrants. However, this may actually reveal judges’ initial thoughts on the matter, namely that it is important that immigrants, particularly immigrants who have already obtained US greencards, and their individual circumstances, are more important than wide-reaching bans that Trump has enacted in the name of diminishing terrorist threats and strengthening national security.
