Supreme Court partially allows Trump's travel ban. Who is still barred?
Intention was to not burden American parties who have relationships with foreigners: SC Justice
Portions of President Trump’s travel ban go into effect on Thursday, three days after the Supreme Court temporarily lifted legal blocks on the ban and agreed to review the case this fall.
The court granted an exception for people with “bona fide relationships” in the United States, and advocates and experts expressed uncertainty about how the Trump administration would implement the decision.
The Supreme Court lifted the suspensions that federal judges had put on Mr. Trump’s travel ban order in March, but only partially: People from the affected countries who have “a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States” will still be allowed to enter the country.
The justices said their intention was to not burden American parties who have relationships with foreigners. They offered some examples of who would be allowed, including “close family,” students and workers offered employment.
But the court did not precisely explain the meaning of “bona fide relationship.” According to a diplomatic cable obtained by The New York Times, the Trump administration has defined “close family” as a “parent (including parent-in-law), spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, sibling, whether whole or half. This includes step relationships.”
“Close family" does not include "grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-laws and sisters-in-law, fiancés and any other ‘extended’ family members."
Europe
ASIA
Iran
Syria
Libya
Yemen
Sudan
Somalia
AFRICA
Syria
Iran
Libya
Yemen
Sudan
Somalia
The president’s order prohibits for 90 days the entry of travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The court’s action means that this ban will only apply to those without bona fide relationships in the United States.
Meanwhile, American officials will conduct a review into screening procedures in place to prevent threats. Travellers from countries that do not provide sufficient information for screening by the end of the review may still be barred from entering the United States.
In its opinion, the court said the administration could complete its review over the summer, so it is possible that the case could become moot by the time it is argued in the fall.
The president’s order also includes a ban on all refugees to the United States for 120 days. After that, the administration will determine from which countries it will reinstate admissions.
Mr. Trump’s order allows case-by-case exceptions for some refugees, and refugees already admitted to the country will be allowed. The court’s exception for those with a bona fide relationship also applies to refugees, but according to independent estimates, about 40 percent of refugees who come to the country have no family ties here.
Advocates argue that refugees’ ties to a nonprofit organization that helps them resettle qualifies as a bona fide relationship. But on Thursday, a State Department official said that a relationship with a resettlement agency in the United States “is not sufficient” to qualify. The official cited the court’s decision, which said that the qualifying ties “have to be formal and documented relationships that were not created for the purposes of evading the executive order.”
The president’s order cuts the refugee program in half, capping it at 50,000 people for the 2017 fiscal year, down from the 110,000 ceiling put in place under President Barack Obama. But the cap will not apply to refugees who can claim a bona fide relationship.
Mr Trump’s order applies to people who do not have current visas, including temporary, non-immigrant visas for students and workers. But these groups already get those visas based on relationships the administration has defined as bona fide, so they will be allowed in.
There were about 13,000 temporary visits by citizens from the six targeted countries in the 2015 fiscal year in those categories.
Like students and workers, most visitors coming to the United States for recreational and business purposes must obtain non-immigrant visas. Those from the six countries will be allowed only if they already have a qualifying bona fide relationship in the United States.
That includes “close family” or a relationship with a “U.S. entity”; for example, the administration said that a “lecturer invited to address an audience” would qualify.
There were 49,412 visits by citizens from the six targeted countries on the B-1 and B-2 visas in 2015.
Mr. Trump’s order also applies to people from the six countries newly arriving on immigrant visas. But most of these visas are granted based on employment or family status that would qualify them to enter under the court’s opinion.
A small percentage of new immigrants are awarded “diversity visas” through a lottery, so it is possible that they would not have bona fide relationships that would allow them to enter.
People issued immigrant visas become legal permanent residents on arrival in the United States and are issued a green card soon after. In 2015, green cards were issued to 31,258 people from these six countries. In general, about half of recent new legal permanent residents have been new arrivals to the country, and the other half have had their status adjusted after living in the United States.
Mr Trump’s order explicitly says green card holders from the targeted countries will be allowed. From 1999 to 2015, 2.6 percent of new legal permanent residents were from the six affected countries.
The president’s order also does not apply to American citizens, or to dual nationals who enter the United States presenting their passport from a country not under the ban.
People on certain types of diplomatic or government visas are also still allowed. Nearly 1,400 admissions from the six countries were made on these visas in 2015:
Diplomats and officials (and their families) on A-1 and A-2 visas
Representatives of foreign governments or international organizations holding G-1, G-2, G-3 or G-4 visas
People with C-2 visas to travel to the United Nations or officials in transit with C-3 visas
Officials (and their families) on North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas
How the Ban Has Evolved
After a panel of federal judges blocked key parts of a January order banning travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries, Mr Trump issued a narrower revised version in March, which, among other changes, removed Iraq from the list of barred countries and took out language prioritising refugees in minority religious groups.
Federal judges blocked the new order in mid-March, and it had been on hold until Monday when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and allowed portions of it to go back into effect.
© The New York Times News Service