A judge orders Washington to admit some 12,000 refugees

(Seattle) A judge ordered the administration of Donald Trump on Monday to admit some 12,000 refugees to the United States, under a legal order partially blocking the president’s efforts to suspend the national refugee admission program.

The ordinance of the American district district Jamal Whitehead followed the arguments of the Department of Justice and the resettlement agencies of refugees concerning the interpretation of a decision of a Federal Court of Appeal which had considerably restricted a previous decision of the judge.

During a hearing last week, the administration said that it should only have to admit 160 refugees and that it would probably call on any order forcing it to admit thousands.

The judge, however, rejected the government’s analysis.

“This court will not accept rewriting, focused on the results, by the government of a judicial order which clearly says what it says,” wrote Whitehead judge on Monday. The government is of course free to request additional clarification from the court of appeal of 9^e circuit. But it is not free to disobey the statutory and constitutional law – nor to the direct orders of this Court and the Court of Appeal of 9^e Circuit – While he seeks to obtain these clarifications. »»

The refugee reception program, created by Congress in 1980, is a form of legal immigration to the United States for people displaced by war, a natural disaster or persecution: a process that often takes years and implies in-depth control. It differs from asylum, by which people newly arrived in the United States may request authorization to stay because they fear being persecuted in their country of origin.

At the start of his second term, on January 20, President Donald Trump published a decree suspending the program.

This triggered a legal action brought by refugees whose resettlement efforts in the United States have been interrupted, as well as by major refugee assistance organizations, which have argued that they had to dismiss staff. The groups stressed that the administration had frozen their funding intended for the processing of refugee requests abroad and aid, in particular in the form of short-term housing assistance, for people already present in the United States.

Judge Whitehead, appointed in 2023 by former President Joe Biden, blocked the application of Donald Trump’s decree, affirming that he was a “de facto cancellation of the Congress’ will to set up the national refugee admission program.

The Court of Appeal of 9^e Circuit of the United States largely suspended the judge’s decision in March, saying that the administration was likely to win given the president’s wide power to determine who is authorized to enter the United States.

But the Court of Appeal also argued that the government should continue to process the requests of people whose entry to the United States had already been authorized, some of whom had turned their lives abroad by selling their property or leaving their jobs. These people had trusted the promises of the federal government according to which they were admitted, concluded the court.

Judge Whitehead ordered the Administration to give instruction in the next seven days to offices and agency staff, including the US embassies, to resume the processing of refugees protected by the court order.