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Judge stops Trump admin from using travel ban to keep refugees out of US

Posted on July 17, 2025 - 2:10 am by

Judge stops Trump admin from using travel ban to keep refugees out of US

A Washington state federal judge ruled this week that the Trump administration’s travel ban on 12 countries does not enable it to block 80 previously-vetted refugees from entering the US. 

Seattle US District Judge Jamal Whitehead ruled late Monday that Trump’s June 4 order restricting arrivals from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen “expressly states that ‘[n]othing in this proclamation shall be construed to limit the ability of an individual to seek… refugee status… consistent with the laws of the United States.’”

Judge Whitehead said Trump’s order banning the entry of people from 12 countries “expressly states” that it does not limit the ability of people to seek refugee status. AP

Last month, the government acknowledged there were 80 refugees relevant to the case who were still being denied entry on the basis of Trump’s June proclamation.

“The Government must immediately resume processing the 80 presumptively protected refugees it has denied based on the Proclamation (that is, unless the Government intends, in accordance with the dispute-resolution procedures below, to try to rebut the presumption),” Whitehead wrote in the ruling. 

In his ruling, Whitehead said “by its plain terms, the Proclamation excludes refugees from its scope.” AP

Whitehead previously ruled that Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order suspending the US Refugee Admissions Program likely “crossed the line,” only for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to later limit relief to those whose resettlement applications were approved, their travel booked, and their status vouched for by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) before Trump took office.

The district judge gave the feds until Monday, July 21, to identify all cases that meet the three criteria.

“The court expects all parties to implement this framework in good faith, recognizing that real families remain in limbo while these legal processes unfold,” Whitehead wrote. “Delays in implementation mean continued separation from safety for some of the world’s most vulnerable people.”

Barring refugees from entering the U.S. would limit their ability to seek refugee status and therefore run counter to the Republican president’s order. AP

The Trump administration previously revealed that some 12,000 individuals had been cleared and booked travel before Trump halted the refugee program. A lot of those cases are subject to seperate litigation.

Whitehead further directed the government to examine whether refugees whose travel was scrapped before Trump’s inauguration, as far back as Dec. 1, 2024, are protected as well. 

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