State Department contradicts DOJ, says 60,000 visas revoked by e - WECT TV6-WECT.com:News, weather & sports Wilmington, NC The State Department says fewer than 60,000 foreigners from seven majority-Muslim countries had their visas provisionally canceled after President Donald Trump's executive order blocked them from traveling to the U.S. Fewer than 60,000 foreigners from seven majority-Muslim countries had their visas canceled after President Donald Trump's executive order blocked them from traveling to the U.S., the State Department said Friday Opponents of President Donald Trump's travel ban are taking their fight to the courtroom in legal battles playing out across the U.S. Judges are hearing challenges in Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Virginia,... Opponents of President Donald Trump's travel ban are taking their fight to the courtroom in legal battles playing out across the ... (more)

Start the conversation, or Read more at WECT-TV Wilmington.</s>The U.S. State Department says "roughly 60,000 individuals' visas were provisionally revoked" as a result of President Trump's Jan. 27 executive order barring refugees from seven countries.

That number is considerably lower than the number given by a Justice Department attorney, who said today in federal court in Virginia that 100,000 visas were revoked as a result of the order, as Carmel Delshad of member station WAMU reported.

Both numbers are considerably higher than the figure provided by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this week. Kevin McAleenan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection told reporters on Tuesday that 721 people with visas had not been allowed to board airplanes to the U.S. in the first 72 hours after the order went into effect. An additional 1,135 people with visas were granted waivers to enter the country, he said.

The 100,000 figure came out during a hearing for two lawful permanent residents from Yemen who filed a lawsuit after arriving at Dulles International Airport last Saturday. The two men allege they were detained and coerced into giving up their immigrant visas before being put on a return flight to Ethiopia, Delshad reported.

"U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said that it was clear to her the temporary travel ban on seven majority-Muslim countries went into effect too quickly, and not a lot of thought went into it," and issued a seven-day extension of a temporary order barring the deportation of green card holders from Dulles Airport, Delshad reported.

The executive order bans people from traveling to the U.S. from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for three months, suspends new-refugee admissions for 120 days and bars Syrian refugees indefinitely.

State Department spokesman Will Cocks says the executive order doesn't mean a visa-holder already in the U.S. is in the country illegally. "An Iranian student in the U.S. now likely has a visa that could have been revoked. However this has no impact on legal status on those in the U.S. So they are not here illegally," he says.

New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, Minnesota and Washington state have all sued the federal government over the order. Eric Schneiderman, the New York state attorney general, described the order signed last Friday as "unconstitutional, unlawful, and fundamentally un-America," reported The Guardian.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department says fewer than 60,000 foreigners from seven majority-Muslim countries had their visas provisionally canceled after President Donald Trump's executive order blocked them from traveling to the U.S.

 

 That figure contradicts a Justice Department lawyer's claim Friday during a hearing in Virginia about the ban. The lawyer in that case said that about 100,000 visas were revoked.

 

 The State Department clarified that the higher figure includes diplomatic and other visas that were actually exempted by the travel ban, as well as expired visas.

 

 Trump's order bans travel for people from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>The U.S. State Department says "roughly 60,000 individuals' visas were provisionally revoked" as a result of President Trump's Jan. 27 executive order barring refugees from seven countries.

That number is considerably lower than the number given by a Justice Department attorney, who said today in federal court in Virginia that 100,000 visas were revoked as a result of the order, as Carmel Delshad of member station WAMU reported.

Both numbers are considerably higher than the figure provided by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this week. Kevin McAleenan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection told reporters on Tuesday that 721 people with visas had not been allowed to board airplanes to the U.S. in the first 72 hours after the order went into effect. An additional 1,135 people with visas were granted waivers to enter the country, he said.

The 100,000 figure came out during a hearing for two lawful permanent residents from Yemen who filed a lawsuit after arriving at Dulles International Airport last Saturday. The two men allege they were detained and coerced into giving up their immigrant visas before being put on a return flight to Ethiopia, Delshad reported.

"U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said that it was clear to her the temporary travel ban on seven majority-Muslim countries went into effect too quickly, and not a lot of thought went into it," and issued a seven-day extension of a temporary order barring the deportation of green card holders from Dulles Airport, Delshad reported.

The executive order bans people from traveling to the U.S. from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for three months, suspends new-refugee admissions for 120 days and bars Syrian refugees indefinitely.

State Department spokesman Will Cocks says the executive order doesn't mean a visa-holder already in the U.S. is in the country illegally. "An Iranian student in the U.S. now likely has a visa that could have been revoked. However this has no impact on legal status on those in the U.S. So they are not here illegally," he says.

New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, Minnesota and Washington state have all sued the federal government over the order. Eric Schneiderman, the New York state attorney general, described the order signed last Friday as "unconstitutional, unlawful, and fundamentally un-America," reported The Guardian.</s>The U.S. State Department says fewer than 60,000 visas have been revoked as a result of President Trump's Jan. 27 executive order barring refugees from seven countries.

That number is considerably lower than the number given by a Justice Department attorney, who said today in federal court in Virginia that 100,000 visas were revoked as a result of the order, as Carmel Delshad of member station WAMU reported.

Both numbers are considerably higher than the figure provided by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this week. Kevin McAleenan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection told reporters on Tuesday that 721 people with visas had not been allowed to board airplanes to the U.S. in the first 72 hours after the order went into effect. An additional 1,135 people with visas were granted waivers to enter the country, he said.

The 100,000 figure came out during a hearing for two lawful permanent residents from Yemen who filed a lawsuit after arriving at Dulles International Airport last Saturday. The two men allege they were detained and coerced into giving up their immigrant visas before being put on a return flight to Ethiopia, Delshad reported.

"U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said that it was clear to her the temporary travel ban on seven majority-Muslim countries went into effect too quickly, and not a lot of thought went into it," and issued a seven-day extension of a temporary order barring the deportation of green card holders from Dulles Airport, Delshad reported.

The executive order bans people from traveling to the U.S. from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for three months, suspends new-refugee admissions for 120 days and bars Syrian refugees indefinitely.

New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, Minnesota and Washington state have all sued the federal government over the order. Eric Schneiderman, the New York state attorney general, described the order signed last Friday as "unconstitutional, unlawful, and fundamentally un-America," reported The Guardian.</s>The U.S. State Department says fewer than 60,000 visas have been revoked as a result of President Trump's Jan. 27 executive order barring refugees from seven countries.

That number is considerably lower than the number given by a Justice Department attorney, who said today in federal court in Virginia that 100,000 visas were revoked as a result of the order, as Carmel Delshad of member station WAMU reported.

Both numbers are considerably higher than the figure provided by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this week. Kevin McAleenan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection told reporters on Tuesday that 721 people with visas had not been allowed to board airplanes to the U.S. in the first 72 hours after the order went into effect. An additional 1,135 people with visas were granted waivers to enter the country, he said.

The 100,000 figure came out during a hearing for two lawful permanent residents from Yemen who filed a lawsuit after arriving at Dulles International Airport last Saturday. The two men allege they were detained and coerced into giving up their immigrant visas before being put on a return flight to Ethiopia, Delshad reported.

"U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said that it was clear to her the temporary travel ban on seven majority-Muslim countries went into effect too quickly, and not a lot of thought went into it," and issued a seven-day extension of a temporary order barring the deportation of green card holders from Dulles Airport, Delshad reported.

The executive order bans people from traveling to the U.S. from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for three months, suspends new-refugee admissions for 120 days and bars Syrian refugees indefinitely.

New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, Minnesota and Washington state have all sued the federal government over the order. Eric Schneiderman, the New York state attorney general, described the order signed last Friday as "unconstitutional, unlawful, and fundamentally un-America," reported The Guardian.</s>More than 100,000 visas have been revoked in the wake of the Trump administration's recent travel ban on citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, several media outlets reported on Friday.

A government attorney cited the figure at a federal court hearing over a new lawsuit filed by the state of Virginia to join an existing lawsuit, Aziz v. Trump, against the Trump administration's immigration order.

Aziz v. Trump was filed in a federal court on Sunday on behalf of two Yemeni brothers with valid visas — Tareq Aqel Mohammed Aziz and Ammar Aqel Mohammed Aziz — and "others similarly situated." It alleges that the Aziz brothers and as many as 60 other foreign nationals were detained by Customs and Border Protection agents upon arriving at Washington Dulles International Airport last weekend and "forced to sign" I-407 forms "against their will and without their knowledge or consent."

The forms, if signed, mean the signatory has "voluntarily" abandoned his or her status as a "lawful permanent resident of the United States," according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Erez Reuveni, a senior litigation counsel in the Office of Immigration Litigation at the Justice Department, told the court on Friday that 100,000 people had their visas revoked since last Friday. That is when Trump signed an executive order barring citizens of Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen from entering the US for 90 days while the federal government revisits its screening processes.

The order also suspended the US's refugee-admitting program for 120 days, indefinitely barred Syrian refugees from resettling in the US, and gave priority status to minorities fleeing religious persecution.

"The Immigration and Nationality Act provides no way to legally effectuate such a ban against this category of immigrants," the Virginia lawsuit says. "Congress has provided that immigrants in petitioners' situation are entitled to enter the United States, and that if the government disagrees, it must institute regular removal proceedings before an immigration judge."

Trump has defended the order by invoking a policy set by President Barack Obama in 2011 — following the discovery that two men suspected of making bombs to target American troops in Iraq were living in Kentucky as refugees — that restricted the entry of Iraqi visa-holders into the US. Politifact rated Trump's comparison "mostly false," however, saying his immigration order was much broader than the previous administration's and did not respond to a specific threat.

The new numbers provided by the government shed more light on how far-reaching Trump's immigration order has been, and they appear to contradict White House press secretary Sean Spicer's claim on Monday that the order "inconvenienced" only 109 people last weekend. When asked on Friday about the 100,000 figure, Spicer replied that he didn't "have all the information about that right now."

"I'll have to get back to you on that," Spicer said.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Justice Center who is representing the Aziz brothers, told reporters after the hearing that “the number 100,000 sucked the air out of my lungs."

"I think you could almost hear the collective gasp in the courtroom when the government attorney stated that number that over 100,000 visas have been canceled," Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

Plaintiffs accusing the government of unlawfully stripping them of their legal-immigrant status have apparently been offered new visas by the US government in exchange for dropping their lawsuits, The Washington Post reported. But US District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who presided over the hearing on Friday, said that offer didn't go "far enough."

Brinkema ultimately ruled that the lawsuit would be allowed to move forward.

"It's quite clear that not all the thought went into it that should have gone into it," Brinkema said, referring to the immigration ban. "There has been chaos ... without any kind of actual hard evidence that there is a need" to revoke visas already granted.

"I have never had so much public outpouring as I've seen in this case," she added. "This order touched something in the United States that I've never seen before. It's amazing."</s>The U.S. State Department says fewer than 60,000 visas have been revoked as a result of President Trump's Jan. 27 executive order barring refugees from seven countries.

That number is considerably lower than the number given by a Justice Department attorney, who said today in federal court in Virginia that 100,000 visas were revoked as a result of the order, as Carmel Delshad of member station WAMU reported.

Both numbers are considerably higher than the figure provided by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this week. Kevin McAleenan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection told reporters on Tuesday that 721 people with visas had not been allowed to board airplanes to the U.S. in the first 72 hours after the order went into effect. An additional 1,135 people with visas were granted waivers to enter the country, he said.

The 100,000 figure came out during a hearing for two lawful permanent residents from Yemen who filed a lawsuit after arriving at Dulles International Airport last Saturday. The two men allege they were detained and coerced into giving up their immigrant visas before being put on a return flight to Ethiopia, Delshad reported.

"U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said that it was clear to her the temporary travel ban on seven majority-Muslim countries went into effect too quickly, and not a lot of thought went into it," and issued a seven-day extension of a temporary order barring the deportation of green card holders from Dulles Airport, Delshad reported.

The executive order bans people from traveling to the U.S. from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for three months, suspends new-refugee admissions for 120 days and bars Syrian refugees indefinitely.

New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, Minnesota and Washington state have all sued the federal government over the order. Eric Schneiderman, the New York state attorney general, described the order signed last Friday as "unconstitutional, unlawful, and fundamentally un-America," reported The Guardian.</s>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 Massachusetts, Washington, New York, have challenged the order.

Before the clarification, 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.

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.

"President Trump's unlawful, unconstitutional, and un-American immigration ban is causing real harm as we speak to Virginia families, students, businesses, and our colleges and universities,” Herring said. "Right now we're working to make sure we get any affected students back into the country, but one-time fixes don't address the underlying problems with this ban.”

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.</s>State Department figure contradicts US media reports quoting government lawyer saying 100,000 visas have been cancelled.

Up to 60,000 travellers to the United States had their visas revoked after President Donald Trump ordered a ban on visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries, according to the State Department.

The admission on Friday came hours after US media reports quoted a government lawyer as saying that about 100,000 travel visas had been cancelled following Trump's move.

A week ago, Trump issued an executive order halting arrivals for at least 90 days for the citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

All refugee arrivals from around the world were also halted, in this case for 120 days.

"Fewer than 60,000 individuals' visas were provisionally revoked to comply with the Executive Order," Will Cocks, spokesman for the department's bureau of consular affairs, said on Friday.

"We recognise that those individuals are temporarily inconvenienced while we conduct our review under the Executive Order," he said.

During the 90-day ban period, the US administration will review visa procedures with a view to introducing what Trump has called "extreme vetting" to weed out suspected "extremists".

US officials have denied the ban amounts to an anti-Muslim measure, despite the order saying "religious minorities" in the mainly-Muslim countries will get priority treatment.

Trump said the move is needed to tighten US security against foreign terror threats, citing the September 11, 2001 attacks, despite the hijackers having no links to the named countries.

In the days after the move, dozens of visitors with valid visas and many with "Green Card" residency permits were detained on arrival at airports and many were sent back.

The White House has said 109 people were held for questioning upon arrival under Trump's executive order. US media have cited homeland security officials as saying many hundreds were denied boarding to the US as the ban was rolled out.

Meanwhile, four US states - Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Washington - were in court on Friday mounting challenges to Trump's ban, with the challengers contending the move was unconstitutional.

The states' arguments focused on the ban's alleged targeting of people based on religion, which would violate the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution prohibiting the government from favouring one religion over another.

The White House has contended the moves were necessary for national security, and Justice Department lawyers on Friday said religion had not been a factor in the selection of the seven countries.
A lawyer for the Justice Department, in a federal court in Virginia, says 100,000 visas have been revoked this week. A State Department spokesperson says the actual number is fewer than 60,000.