CLOSE Skip in Skip x Embed x Share The State Department and a lawyer for the Justice Department are providing contradicting numbers on how many visas have been revoked since President Trump's travel order. USA TODAY NETWORK 
 
 Trailed by reporters, Hossein Vayghan, center, heads to see his brother Ali Vayeghan as his daughter Marjan K. Vayghan, follows closely behind at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles on Feb. 2, 2017. Vayeghan, who had been turned away from the airport under President Trump's executive order barring immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations, returned Thursday to an emotional welcome from family members. (Photo: Ed Crisostomo, AP) 
 
 The State Department said Friday fewer than 60,000 visas were revoked in the week since President Trump suspended travel arrivals for citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries. 
 
 The figure contradicted a Justice Department lawyer, who said in U.S. District Court on Friday that 100,000 visas were revoked, according to news reports from CNN and The Washington Post. 
 
 The department clarified that the higher figure used by the Justice Department lawyer included diplomatic and other visas that were exempted by the travel ban, as well as expired visas. 
 
 The revocation number was revealed Friday in a court case in Virginia involving two Yemeni brothers denied entry when they arrived at Virginia's Dulles International Airport following Trump’s Jan. 27 order. The executive action barred travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Attorneys general from several states, including Hawaii, Massachusetts, Washington and New York have challenged the order. 
 
 Later, Friday, U.S. District Judge James Robart in Washington state issued a nationwide restraining order blocking the travel ban. In issuing his decision, Robart was siding with Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who argued the order is causing significant harm to residents and effectively mandates discrimination. Minnesota joined the suit. 
 
 Before the clarification in the Virginia case, Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni told Judge Leonie Brinkema that 100,000 visas had been rejected, according to CNN and the Post. Visas are temporary permits to enter the U.S. Reuveni said no legal permanent residents, or green-card holders, have been denied entry. 
 
 “The number 100,000 sucked the air out of my lungs,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg of the Legal Aid Justice Center told The Washington Post. 
 
 Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, when asked about the case during his daily briefing, said he had no information about it. 
 
 Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked the secretaries of State and Homeland Security to provide details by Feb. 10 about how visa revocations and how many travelers have been denied entry. 
 
 “The executive order has caused widespread confusion and created uncertainty for countless refugees, asylum seekers, and others who currently possess or were approved for visas," Leahy wrote to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. "This uncertainty threatens to put men, women, and children fleeing war, violence, and persecution at risk of death and injury." 
 
 Attorneys general in 16 states and the District of Columbia issued a statement condemning Trump's order. The states are California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. 
 
 “As the chief legal officers for over 130 million Americans and foreign residents of our states, we condemn President Trump’s unconstitutional, un-American and unlawful executive order and will work together to ensure the federal government obeys the Constitution, respects our history as a nation of immigrants, and does not unlawfully target anyone because of their national origin or faith," the statement said. 
 
 Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, who won approval from the court on Friday to participate in the case, said he would argue at a hearing Feb. 10 for an injunction against Trump’s order. Brinkema ordered the government to provide all the names of Virginia residents denied entry or removed because of the order, Herring said. 
 
 Eric Ferrero, spokesman for Amnesty International USA, urged Congress to revoke the travel order "before it tears even more families apart." 
 
 "President Trump’s cruel and unlawful Muslim ban is causing widespread harm, and that’s why there’s a growing public backlash against it," Ferrero said. 
 
 Administration officials have said the 90-day pause in arrivals from those countries is necessary to review and perhaps tighten the visa vetting process. But the order sparked protests at airports across the country and opposition from corporate leaders who said it would hurt their businesses. 
 
 The State Department last year issued more than 600,000 immigrant visas last year, including visas for 7,727 to Iranians, 3,660 to Iraqis, 383 to Libyans, 1,797 to Somalians, 2,606 to Sudanese, 2,633 to Syrians and 12,998 to Yemenis. 
 
 Those visas were the subject of a lawsuit filed Saturday by two Iraqis who were initially denied entry at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. District Court Judge Ann Donnelly temporarily blocked the order in that case, pending a full hearing. 
 
 The State Department also granted nearly 11 million non-immigrant visas in 2015, the most recent year available, including visas for 29,007 Iranians, 11,399 Iraqis, 1,613 Libyans, 219 Somalians, 4,354 Sudanese, 9,003 Syrians and 3,787 Yemenis. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2k4sW92 ||||| (Reuters) - U.S. judges in at least five states blocked federal authorities from enforcing President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. 
 
 However, lawyers representing people covered by the order said some authorities were unwilling on Sunday to follow the judges’ rulings. 
 
 Judges in California, Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington state, each home to international airports, issued their rulings after a similar order was issued on Saturday night by U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in New York’s Brooklyn borough. 
 
 Donnelly had ruled in a lawsuit by two men from Iraq being held at John F. Kennedy International Airport. 
 
 While none of the rulings struck down Friday’s executive order by the new Republican president, the growing number of them could complicate the administration’s effort to enforce it. 
 
 The rulings add to questions about the constitutionality of the order, said Andrew Pincus, a Mayer Brown partner representing two Yemeni men who were denied U.S. entry from an overseas flight despite being legal permanent residents. 
 
 “People have gone through processes to obtain legal permanent resident status, or visas,” Pincus said. “There are serious questions about whether those rights, which were created by statute, can be unilaterally taken away without process.” 
 
 Trump’s order halted travel by people with passports from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, and stopped the resettlement of refugees for 120 days. 
 
 He said these actions were needed “to protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States.” 
 
 The order sparked a global backlash, including from U.S. allies that view the actions as discriminatory and divisive. 
 
 Attorneys general from California, New York, 13 other states and Washington, D.C., meanwhile, in a statement condemned and pledged to fight what they called Trump’s “dangerous” and “unconstitutional” order. 
 
 The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Sunday said it “will comply with judicial orders,” while enforcing Trump’s order in a manner that ensures those entering the United States “do not pose a threat to our country or the American people.” 
 
 SAFE, NOT SORRY 
 
 Striking that balance has caused confusion, according to lawyers who worked overnight and on Sunday to help travelers at JFK Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia, and elsewhere. 
 
 Activists gather at the US Capitol to protest President Donald Trump's executive actions on immigration in Washington January 29, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein 
 
 Immigration lawyer Sharifa Abbasi said some Border Patrol agents at Dulles refused to let lawyers talk with detainees, even after being shown an order from U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema requiring such access. 
 
 Abbasi said the agents instead told the lawyers to call their agency’s office, where no one was answering. 
 
 “There is really no method to this madness,” Becca Heller, director of the New York-based International Refugee Assistance Project organization, told reporters on a conference call. 
 
 Supporters of Trump’s order said authorities acted properly in swiftly taking steps to enforce it. 
 
 “It is better (to) be safe than sorry,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the conservative Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. 
 
 Lawsuits on behalf of more than 100 individual travelers have been filed nationwide, activists and lawyers estimated. 
 
 Some have come from large corporate firms including Mayer Brown, Kirkland & Ellis, and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. 
 
 CURBS ON TRUMP’S ORDER 
 
 In Boston, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs on Sunday temporarily blocked the removal of two Iranians who have taught at the University of Massachusetts, and had been detained at the city’s Logan International Airport. 
 
 Burroughs’ ruling appeared to go further than Donnelly’s by barring the detention, as well as the removal, of approved refugees, visa holders and permanent U.S. residents entering from the seven countries. Donnelly’s order forbade only removal. 
 
 Matthew Segal, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, in a statement called Burroughs’ ruling “a huge victory for justice” in the face of what he called Trump’s “unconstitutional ban on Muslims.” 
 
 The U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion. Trump’s order sought to prioritize refugees fleeing religious persecution, which the president said was aimed at helping Christians in Syria. 
 
 Burroughs’ ruling also prompted some Trump critics to urge holders of green cards, which allow foreign nationals to live and work permanently in the United States, to fly into Boston, to lessen the risk of detainment. 
 
 White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said several times on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Trump’s order does not affect green card holders “moving forward” or “going forward.” 
 
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 In a ruling on Sunday, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles directed the return to the United States of Ali Khoshbakhti Vayeghan, who authorities had sent back to his native Iran following Trump’s order. 
 
 The ruling from Brinkema, in Alexandria, Virginia, barred the Homeland Security agency from removing an estimated 50 to 60 legal permanent residents who had been detained at Dulles. 
 
 In Seattle, U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly barred the government from removing two people, who were not named in court papers. He scheduled a Feb. 3 hearing on whether to lift that stay.
– US District Court Judge Ann Donnelly issued an injunction barring the government from deporting anyone during an emergency hearing Saturday night in Brooklyn, and her court was not the only one to do so. Reuters reports that judges in three additional states—Massachusetts, Virginia, and Washington state—have since followed suit. Reuters points out that these legal moves are curbs that do not eradicate President Trump's executive order that severely limits immigration, but observes "the growing number ... could complicate the administration's effort to enforce it." The former is exactly what an unnamed senior White House official pointed out, reportedly telling NBC's Kelly O'Donnell such rulings do "not undercut the President's executive order." The official continues, "All stopped visas will remain stopped. All halted admissions will remain halted. All restricted travel will remain prohibited. ... The order remains in place." But the pressure shows no sign of easing: The AP reports that the attorneys general of 15 states and the District of Columbia will issue a joint statement branding Trump's ban as unconstitutional and at odds with "a bedrock principle" of the US: religious liberty. The states: Washington, California, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Virginia, Oregon, Connecticut, Vermont, Illinois, New Mexico, Iowa, Maine, and Maryland. What Trump had to say Sunday morning on Twitter: "Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW. Look what is happening all over Europe and, indeed, the world - a horrible mess!"