People protest President Donald Trump's travel ban outside as the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle, Washington. | Jason Redmond/Getty Images Court rejects Trump administration on travel ban exemptions Grandparents, cousins of Americans get reprieve, as do many refugees.

President Donald Trump's travel ban policy suffered another defeat Thursday as an appeals court rejected the administration’s attempt to deny grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins of Americans a temporary exemption from the controversial executive order.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously declined to overturn a district court judge’s ruling that the administration was taking too narrow a view of an exception the Supreme Court carved out from the travel ban in June.

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The appeals court judges reasoned that since the justices said the mother-in-law of one travel-ban challenger was entitled to a reprieve from the president's order, other relatives should enjoy the same treatment.

"If mothers-in-law clearly fall within the scope of the injunction, then so too should grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins," Judges Michael Daly Hawkins, Ronald Gould and Richard Paez wrote in a joint opinion. "The Government does not offer a persuasive explanation for why a mother-in-law is clearly a bona fide relationship, in the Supreme Court’s prior reasoning, but a grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, or cousin is not."

The appeals court panel also cleared the way for a greater flow of refugees, declining to disturb a lower court order that those already assigned to resettlement agencies can enter the United States despite Trump’s directive.

Justice Department lawyers had argued that those agencies deal directly with the government and rarely have contact with refugees until around the time of their arrival, but the judges found that argument beside the point.

"Even if a resettlement agency does not have 'direct contact' with a refugee before arrival, this does not negate the finding that a relationship has formed. The agency still expends resources and arranges for individualized services based on the specific refugees that the agency has agreed to resettle," the 9th Circuit panel wrote. "Resettlement agencies will face concrete harms and burdens if refugees with formal assurances are not admitted."

A Justice Department official said Thursday night that the administration will again ask the Supreme Court to set aside the legal rulings that have largely gutted Trump's policy.

“The Supreme Court has stepped in to correct these lower courts before, and we will now return to the Supreme Court to vindicate the executive branch’s duty to protect the nation," a Justice spokeswoman said.





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The revised travel ban Trump issued in March suspends issuance of U.S. visas to residents of six majority-Muslim countries and halts admission of refugees from across the globe. The Supreme Court has set arguments on the ban’s legality for October 10.

Asked about the appeals court decision, a White House official expressed confidence in the legal underpinnings of Trump's directive.

"The president’s travel order is well within his legal authority and keeps our nation safe," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "The Department of Justice will vigorously defend it."

The new appeals court ruling could effectively negate the travel ban's application to refugees in the coming weeks, since about 24,000 are already assigned to U.S. resettlement organizations.

In July, the Supreme Court temporarily halted the lower-court ruling clearing the way for admission of more refugees, but the high court's ruling expires by its own terms now that the 9th Circuit has ruled on the issue.

Now, the Trump administration seems intent on again asking the justices to address the definition of close family and to clarify which refugees are exempt under the high court's June order.

The annual allocation of refugees runs through the end of the fiscal year at the end of this month. Trump could try to block the admission of any refugees after Sept. 30 by setting that number to zero or a low figure.

Obama had set the cap for this year at 110,000, although for budget and capacity reasons a much lower number of refugees were actually expected to be admitted. Trump attempted to lower the cap to 50,000 for this year, but court rulings have effectively blocked that move.

A lawyer handling the case decided Thursday, Neal Katyal, hailed the decision.

“The court of appeals has just sided with Hawaii (and constitutional freedoms everywhere) against Trump,” Katyal wrote on Twitter.

All three 9th Circuit judges who ruled on the travel ban exemption Thursday are appointees of President Bill Clinton. It's the same panel of jurists that issued one of the two appeals court rulings earlier this year that Trump's revised travel ban was likely illegal. By 9th Circuit policy, the same set of judges is usually assigned to recurring appeals arising from the same case.

Trump billed his initial travel-ban order, issued in January, and the revised edition, released in March, as anti-terrorism measures designed to protect Americans from threats posed by radical foreigners and to allow authorities time to improve vetting procedures. However, critics denounced the measures as thinly veiled versions of the Muslim ban Trump promoted and promised during his presidential campaign.

The Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals accepted that argument in a May ruling against the revised travel ban, with the court's majority concluding that the order amounts to intentional religious discrimination.

The California-based 9th Circuit's decision, issued in June, dodged that issue, concluding that Trump failed to meet legal requirements and exceeded his statutory authority in issuing the directive.

The two key prongs of the revised travel ban are set to expire in the coming weeks, further complicating the legal picture. The 90-day ban on issuance of visas to citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen expires Sept. 24. So that part of Trump’s policy could be expired by the time the case is argued at the Supreme Court on Oct. 10. The refugee halt is scheduled to end about two weeks later.</s></s>SEATTLE (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s limited view of who is allowed into the United States under the president’s travel ban, saying grandparents, cousins and similarly close relations of people in the U.S. should not be prevented from coming to the country.

The unanimous ruling from three judges on the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also cleared the way for refugees accepted by a resettlement agency to travel here. The decision upheld a ruling by a federal judge in Hawaii who found the administration’s view too strict.

“…it is clear that the Supreme Court’s use of “close familial relationship[s]” meant that the Court wanted to exclude individuals who have no connection with the United States or have remote familial relationships that would not qualify as “bona fide.” The Government does not meaningfully argue how grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins of persons in the United States can be considered to have “no connection” to or “lack any bona fide relationship” with persons in the United States. Nor does the Government explain how its proposed scope of exclusion would avoid the infliction of concrete hardships on such individuals’ family members in the United States. Stated simply, the Government does not offer a persuasive explanation for why a mother-in-law is clearly a bona fide relationship, in the Supreme Court’s prior reasoning, but a grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, or cousin is not.”

Click here to read the full opinion.

Lawyers for the government and the state of Hawaii, which challenged the travel ban, argued the case in Seattle last week.

Deputy assistant attorney general Hashim Mooppan ran into tough questions as soon as he began arguing the government’s case, with Judge Ronald Gould asking him from “what universe” the administration took its position that grandparents don’t constitute a close family relationship.

Mooppan conceded that people can have a profound connection to their grandparents and other extended relatives, but from a legal perspective, the administration had to draw the line somewhere to have a workable ban based largely on definitions used in other aspects of immigration law, he said.

“Today’s decision by the 9th Circuit keeps families together. It gives vetted refugees a second chance. The Trump administration keeps taking actions with no legal basis. We will keep fighting back,” said Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin.

The U.S. Supreme Court said in June that President Donald Trump’s 90-day ban on visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen can be enforced pending arguments scheduled for October, partially overturning lower-court rulings. But the justices said it should not apply to visitors who have a “bona fide relationship” with people or organizations in the U.S., such as close family ties or a job offer.

That set the stage for much disagreement over what constitutes a bona fide relationship.

The government interpreted such family relations to include immediate family members and in-laws, but not grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. The judge in Hawaii overruled that interpretation, expanding the definition of who can enter the country to the other categories of relatives.

He also overruled the government’s assertion that refugees from those countries should be banned even if a resettlement agency in the U.S. had agreed to take them in.

The administration argued that resettlement agencies have a relationship with the government, not with individual refugees. The appeals court rejected that, saying the Supreme Court was concerned with any harm the travel ban might impose on people or organizations in the U.S.

Resettlement agencies have spent time and money securing rental housing, buying furniture and performing other tasks that would be in vain if the refugees were blocked, the 9th Circuit said. They also would lose out on government funding for the resettlement services.

The appeals panel wrote that under typical court rules, its ruling would not take effect for at least 52 days. But in this instance, the judges said, many refugees would be “gravely imperiled” by such a delay, so the decision will take effect in five days.

“Refugees’ lives remain in vulnerable limbo during the pendency of the Supreme Court’s stay,” they wrote. “Refugees have only a narrow window of time to complete their travel, as certain security and medical checks expire and must then be reinitiated.”

The Justice Department said it would appeal.

“The Supreme Court has stepped in to correct these lower courts before, and we will now return to the Supreme Court to vindicate the executive branch’s duty to protect the nation,” the agency said in a statement.

Hawaii is also one of 15 states that sued the Trump administration Wednesday over its plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protects young immigrants from deportation.</s>SEATTLE — Grandparents, cousins and similarly close relations of people in the United States should not be prevented from coming to the country under President Donald Trump’s travel ban, a federal appeals court has ruled in another legal defeat for the administration on the contentious issue.

The decision Thursday from three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by a federal judge in Hawaii, who found the administration’s view of who should be allowed into the country under the ban is too strict.

The unanimous ruling also said refugees accepted by a resettlement agency should not be banned.

“Stated simply, the government does not offer a persuasive explanation for why a mother-in-law is clearly a bona fide relationship, in the Supreme Court’s prior reasoning, but a grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, or cousin is not,” the 9th Circuit said.

The appeals panel wrote that under typical court rules, its ruling would not take effect for at least 52 days. But in this instance, the judges said, many refugees would be “gravely imperiled” by such a delay, so the decision will take effect in five days.

“Refugees’ lives remain in vulnerable limbo during the pendency of the Supreme Court’s stay,” they wrote. “Refugees have only a narrow window of time to complete their travel, as certain security and medical checks expire and must then be reinitiated.”

The Justice Department said it would appeal.

“The Supreme Court has stepped in to correct these lower courts before, and we will now return to the Supreme Court to vindicate the executive branch’s duty to protect the nation,” the agency said in a statement.

The U.S. Supreme Court said in June that President Donald Trump’s 90-day ban on visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen can be enforced pending arguments scheduled for October, partially overturning lower-court rulings. But the justices said it should not apply to visitors who have a “bona fide relationship” with people or organizations in the U.S., such as close family ties or a job offer.

That set the stage for much disagreement over what constitutes a bona fide relationship.

The government interpreted such family relations to include immediate family members and in-laws, but not grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. The judge in Hawaii overruled that interpretation, expanding the definition of who can enter the country to the other categories of relatives.

He also overruled the government’s assertion that refugees from those countries should be banned even if a resettlement agency in the U.S. had agreed to take them in.

The administration argued that resettlement agencies have a relationship with the government, not with individual refugees. The appeals court rejected that, saying the Supreme Court was concerned with any harm the travel ban might impose on people or organizations in the U.S.

Resettlement agencies have spent time and money securing rental housing, buying furniture and performing other tasks that would be in vain if the refugees were blocked, the 9th Circuit said. They also would lose out on government funding for the resettlement services.

Lawyers for the government and the state of Hawaii, which challenged the travel ban, argued the case in Seattle last week.

Deputy assistant attorney general Hashim Mooppan ran into tough questions as soon as he began arguing the government’s case, with Judge Ronald Gould asking him from “what universe” the administration took its position that grandparents don’t constitute a close family relationship.

Mooppan conceded that people can have a profound connection to their grandparents and other extended relatives, but from a legal perspective, the administration had to draw the line somewhere to have a workable ban based largely on definitions used in other aspects of immigration law, he said.

Hawaii is also one of 15 states that sued the Trump administration Wednesday over its plans to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that protects young immigrants from deportation.

“Today’s decision by the 9th Circuit keeps families together. It gives vetted refugees a second chance,” state Attorney General Douglas Chin said in a statement. “The Trump administration keeps taking actions with no legal basis. We will keep fighting back.”</s>SEATTLE - A federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration's limited view of who is allowed into the U.S. under the president's travel ban.

 

 A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that grandparents, cousins and similarly close relations of people in the U.S. shouldn't be prevented from coming to the country.

 

 The court also said refugees accepted by a resettlement agency shouldn't be banned.

 

 In June, the U.S. Supreme Court said the 90-day ban could be enforced pending arguments set for October. But the justices said it shouldn't apply to visitors who have a "bona fide relationship" with people or organizations in the U.S., such as close family ties or a job offer.

 

 The government interpreted such relations to include immediate family members and in-laws, but not grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles.</s>An appeals court in the United States on Thursday rejected an attempt by the Donald Trump administration to include grandparents and other relatives of legal US citizens in a travel ban from six Muslim-majority countries, Reuters reported.

“It is hard to see how a grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, sibling-in-law, or cousin can be considered to have no bona fide relationship with their relative in the United States,” the three-judge panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals said.

The court also ruled that those who have relationships with resettlement agencies in the country should also be exempted from the executive order. The advance preparations made and the expenditure of resources incurred by these resettlement bodies prove that a “bona fide relationship with the refugee exists”, the bench held.

The state of Hawaii had contended that the criteria to ban close relatives from entering the country was too restrictive, Bloomberg reported.

In July, the US Supreme Court had ruled that Trump’s travel ban can be implemented on a limited basis only by exempting bona fide relationships from it. The top court will hear arguments against Trump’s travel ban on October 10.

The travel order, which came into effect on June 30, bars visitors from Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the country. The US State Department had said it will only allow “close family” of those in the US from these countries.

Trump has insisted the ban is to protect the US from terrorism and to allow immigration officials to vet those entering the country more closely. But the move has been seen as part of one of Trump’s key presidential campaign promises – a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims” entering the US.</s>San Francisco-based 9th Circuit gives a unanimous ruling that has narrowed the scope of Donald Trump’s travel ban.

The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals decided on Thursday that Trump administration cannot ban extended family members that include grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins of persons in the United States and certain refugees from entering the country. The rule will take effect in five days; the legality of the travel ban is still under review.

The order is seen as a setback to the infamous travel ban that Trump introduced on March 6. In June, the Supreme Court had ruled that the ban could be implemented excluding the individuals who have “bona fide relationship” with a US person or entity. The president’s executive order to ban six predominantly-Muslim countries – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – was otherwise blocked by lower courts.

The administration, however, narrowed the scope of “bona fide relationship” by arguing that it only includes close family members, which are parents, spouses, siblings, and children. While interpreting Court’s order, White House said that grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins from the above mentioned six countries would remain included in the ban.

Opponents of the travel ban argued that the Supreme Court’s order never excluded extended family member such as grandparents. The proponents, however, maintained that the challengers of the travel ban are interpreting the Supreme Court’s order too broadly.

Judges Michael Hawkins, Ronald Gould and Richard Paez, the three judges hearing the case, were doubtful on the administration’s arguments.

“The Government does not meaningfully argue how grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins of person in the United States can be considered to have “no connection” to or “lack any bona fide relationship” with persons in the United States,” the ruling said. “Denying entry to these foreign nationals would burden persons in the United States “by reason of party’s relationship with the foreign nationals.””

Regarding excluding refugees covered by formal assurances, the ruling said, “Resettlement agencies will face concrete harms and burdens if refugees with formal assurances are not admitted.”

The order said that considering the vulnerability of the refugees during the implementation time, the ruling, which would have otherwise taken 52 days to come into force, will be effective after five days of the filing of the court’s opinion.</s>A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that grandparents, cousins and others with similarly close family relations in the United States should not be barred from entering the country under the Trump administration's travel ban.

In a unanimous ruling, three 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges in Seattle rejected the administration's interpretation of who should be allowed entry into the United States, saying "the government does not offer a persuasive explanation for why a mother-in-law is clearly a bona fide relationship, in the Supreme Court’s prior reasoning, but a grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, or cousin is not."

The court also ruled against banning refugees accepted by a resettlement agency.

In June, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that enforcement of Trump's travel ban could continue but that visitors with a "bona fide relationship" with people in the U.S. would be allowed entry into the country.

The Trump administration interpreted "bona fide" to include immediate family members and in-laws but exclude grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins.

A U.S. district court in Hawaii ordered this interpretation too narrow in July, allowing entry for grandparents, cousins and other family members as well as refugees working with resettlement agencies. When the administration appealed, the Supreme Court refused the government's request to clarify its June ruling but sent the case down to the 9th circuit for resolution.

Thursday's ruling also expedited the time it takes for the court's ruling to go into effect. Normally, the ruling would take 52 days to go into effect, but the court sped the timeline up to just five days because many refugees are "gravely imperiled," the judges said.

Immigrant rights groups applauded the decision and called on the administration to act further to protect refugees. Justin Cox, a staff attorney for the National Immigration Law Center, said in a statement that the decision was "a step in the right direction, and will hopefully help to ensure that discrimination does not become the law of the land in our country."

During oral arguments, lawyers for the government faced tough questioning from the judges in Seattle, the Associated Press reported. Judge Ronald Gould asked from “what universe” the administration formed its interpretation that grandparents would not count as a close family relationship, the Associated Press reported.

Trump's travel ban, which was first rolled out in January as an executive order titled "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States," initially suspended travel from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days, blocked all refugees for 120 days, and suspended travel from Syria indefinitely.

Trump later revised the ban to exempt visa and green card holders and drop Iraq from the list. The Supreme Court is scheduled to begin hearing arguments in October</s>SEATTLE (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration's limited view of who is allowed into the United States under the president's travel ban, saying grandparents, cousins and similarly close relations of people in the U.S. should not be prevented from coming to the country.

 

 The unanimous ruling from three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also said refugees accepted by a resettlement agency should not be banned. The decision upheld a ruling by a federal judge in Hawaii who found the administration's view too strict.

 

 "Stated simply, the government does not offer a persuasive explanation for why a mother-in-law is clearly a bona fide relationship, in the Supreme Court's prior reasoning, but a grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, or cousin is not," the ruling said.

 

 The U.S. Supreme Court said in June that President Donald Trump's 90-day ban on visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen can be enforced pending arguments scheduled for October. But the justices said it should not apply to visitors who have a "bona fide relationship" with people or organizations in the U.S., such as close family ties or a job offer.

 

 The government interpreted such family relations to include immediate family members and in-laws, but not grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. The judge in Hawaii overruled that interpretation, expanding the definition of who can enter the country to the other categories of relatives.

 

 The Hawaii judge also overruled the government's assertion that refugees from those countries should be banned even if a resettlement agency in the U.S. had agreed to take them in.

 

 Lawyers for the government and the state of Hawaii, which challenged the travel ban, argued the case in Seattle last week.

 

 Deputy assistant attorney general Hashim Mooppan ran into tough questions as soon as he began arguing the government's case, with Judge Ronald Gould asking him from "what universe" the administration took its position that grandparents don't constitute a close family relationship.

 

 Judge Richard Paez similarly questioned why an in-law would be allowed in, but not a grandparent.

 

 "Could you explain to me what's significantly different between a grandparent and a mother-in-law, father-in-law?" Paez asked. "What is so different about those two categories? One is in and one is out."

 

 Mooppan conceded that people can have a profound connection to their grandparents and other extended relatives, but from a legal perspective, the administration had to draw the line somewhere to have a workable ban based largely on definitions used in other aspects of immigration law, he said.</s>The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday rejected the Trump administration's limited view of who is allowed into the country under its revised travel ban.

A three-judge panel decided that grandparents, cousins and similarly close extended family relationships of people in the U.S. shouldn't be prevented from coming to the country. The court also said refugees already accepted by a resettlement agency shouldn't be banned. The appeals court decision upholds a decision from a district court judge in Hawaii, who said the administration's view was too narrow. The decision impacts the revised travel ban, which temporarily suspends new visas and travel for people coming from the Muslim-dominated countries of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

"Stated simply, the government does not offer a persuasive explanation for why a mother-in-law is clearly a bona fide relationship, in the Supreme Court's prior reasoning, but a grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, or cousin is not," the ruling said.

The Supreme Court, in a provisional ruling in June, said the ban couldn't be imposed on people who have a "bona fide" relationship to the U.S., pending additional arguments set for October. But the Supreme Court declined to clarify that definition, leaving it up for interpretation.

Last month, Department of Justice lawyers tried to make the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that grandparents and other relatives do not count as "bona fide" relationships. The three-judge panel met that claim with skepticism, giving an early indication of where the court would land.

"If a close familiar relationship is what's needed for an individual, how can the government take the position that a grandmother or a grandfather, or aunt or uncle of a child in the U.S., does not have a close familial relationship? Like, what universe does that come from?" said Judge Ronald Gould, visibly frustrated with the government's arguments at the time.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejects the Trump administration arguments regarding the travel ban on grandparents, cousins and others with a bona fide relationship in the United States.