Federal Appeals Court Upholds Halt on Trump Administration’s Travel Ban

As reported, Trump’s original attempt to impose the ban led to huge demonstrations across the U.S. in several prominent cities and USA airports, which included Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Dallas and others.

Trump gave no details of any new ban he is considering.

Two top USA senators have proposed a legislation to cut the number of legal immigrants to the U.S. by half within a decade, a move that could adversely hit those aspiring to get a green card or permanent residency in the US. Doing that could alleviate some concerns expressed by the courts.

The Trump administration contends that the president has authority under the Constitution and congressional statute to control immigration for national security purposes.

An official tells CNN that administration officials were not happy with the DOJ lawyer’s performance during the oral arguments before the three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit and thought he was not as prepared as he should have been for the arguments against Washington and Minnesota, the states that challenged Trump’s executive order.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said Friday that a Supreme Court bid is still on the table, moments after another White House official indicated otherwise.

Alexander Reinert, a legal expert at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law in NY, told the Huffington Post that those who filed the previous complaint could ask the same court to allow them to amend their complaints so that a new restraining order can be issued.

The President on January 24 banned immigration from seven countries with suspected terrorist affiliations-Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen-for 90 days.

The so-called “Muslim ban” came under severe criticism and sparked a wave of protests across the country.

In its appeal the Justice Department said that only the US President can decide who enters the country.

The ruling represented a setback for Mr Trump’s administration and the second legal defeat for the new president in the past week.

“Accordingly, at this time, defendants believe the appropriate course is to postpone any further proceedings in the district court”, Justice Department lawyers wrote.

“New security measures. We have very, very strong vetting”.

More interestingly, ForwardKeys also looked at wider worldwide trends in bookings to the United States and discovered a 6.5% negative variation compared with the equivalent eight-day period the year before.

A federal appeals court panel on Thursday declined the Trump administration’s request to reinstate its executive order temporarily barring US entry for individuals from seven countries, citing disruption in higher education among other factors. The vote is likely to occur after the briefs are filed.

Trump said there are tremendous threats to the country.