An American federal judge ordered the administration of Donald Trump on Monday to let in 12,000 refugees in the United States, a new judicial setback to the president’s attempts to suspend these admissions.
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The decision rendered Monday clarifies the contours of another decision taken in April by a federal court of appeal, which authorized the Trump administration to suspend the admissions of refugees while ordering it to admit those who have already obtained this status and organized their trip to the United States.
The Trump administration estimated that the latter component only concerned the 160 people who planned to travel within two weeks of the decree signed in January by the president, suspending refugee arrivals in the United States.
But a federal judge of Seattle said on Monday that this interpretation of the Trump administration represented an “interpretative micmac”.
If this federal court of appeal “had wanted to impose a limit of two weeks – which would have reduced the protected population from 12,000 to 160 people -, it would have done so explicitly,” said Jamal Whitehead in his decision.
At the end of February, the same judge had blocked Donald Trump’s decree ending refugee admissions to the United States.
The presidential text believed that the refugee admission program, led for a long time in the United States, was “prejudicial to the interests” of the country.
The United States has been hosting refugees for decades, via a program that is one of the rare access to American citizenship.
The previous administration of Joe Biden had made the reception of refugees a priority. During the 2024 fiscal year, some 100,000 refugees resettled in the United States, the highest number in three decades, according to official figures.
Since his return to power, Donald Trump has set up a vast anti-immigration offensive, in accordance with his campaign promises.
