A federal judge in the United States has granted a request from the American Civil Liberties Union to stay the deportation of travellers detained on entry to the country under new immigration laws.
Judge Ann Donnelly‘s ruling applies to those who landed at US airports with valid visas on the day that Donald Trump‘s executive order on travel came into effect, blocking residents of certain Muslim-majority countries from entering.
The executive order, which bars residents of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia from entering the US for 90 days left a number of travellers detained, with fear that they would be turned around at the border.
Judge Donnelly said that the U.S. government had “presumably approved” the entry of these travellers into the country prior to the executive order, and that had it been two days prior, none of them would have been detained.
Per reports in The Chicago Tribune, Judge Donnelly’s decision was made in part because an ACLU attorney informed the court of a refugee’s imminent deportation to Syria.
She asked U.S. attorneys if they could guarantee that this person would be safe from “irreparable harm” when he returned to Syria, and they could not grant such an assurance.
Celebrations break out at Brooklyn courthouse after judge grants stay temporarily blocking Pres. Trump’s exec. order https://t.co/79a2DpjqmB
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 29, 2017
Per reports in the Chicago Tribune, Judge Donnelly asked the U.S. government if they could provide a list of those who are currently in detention, but U.S. attorneys responded that this would be “more difficult than it sounds.”
The New York Times estimate that the order could affect upwards of 100 people detained on arrival at American airports.
At this stage, however, it would appear that detainees are still in limbo – while they will not be sent back to their home countries just now, they could remain in immigration detention until the matter is resolved.
Source: The New York Times / Chicago Tribune.
Photo: Stephanie Keith / Getty.
