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. All three 9th Circuit judges who ruled on the travel ban exemption Thursday are appointees of President Bill Clinton. 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. Circuit Court of Appeals also cleared the way for refugees accepted by a resettlement agency to travel here. “…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. 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. 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 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 judge in Hawaii overruled that interpretation, expanding the definition of who can enter the country to the other categories of relatives. "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? 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.
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.