After a federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s order suspending the refugee program and barring travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries, the State Department on Saturday said it would reinstate visas that were revoked due to Trump’s order, according to the Associated Press.
The State Department said it took steps to reverse the cancellation of visas after the Justice Department communicated with them about the judge’s ruling on Friday, per AP.
Earlier on Friday, the State Department said it had revoked fewer than 60,000 visas due to Trump’s order. However, a government attorney disclosed that the department had revoked 100,000 visas due to the travel ban. The State Department said that the attorney’s higher number likely included exempt visa holders like “diplomatic and other visas that were actually exempted by the travel ban.”
The Department of Homeland Security also said Saturday that it had suspended all efforts to enforce Trump’s executive order due to the federal judge’s ruling.
“In accordance with the judge’s ruling, DHS has suspended any and all actions implementing the affected sections of the Executive Order entitled, ‘Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.’ This includes actions to suspend passenger system rules that flag travelers for operational action subject to the Executive Order,” Gillian Christensen, a spokesperson for DHS, said in a statement obtained by CNN.
U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order on Friday that blocks Trump’s order nationwide. His order came in a lawsuit filed by Minnesota and Washington states, which argued that Trump’s order hurts residents and amounts to discrimination.
The ACLU on Saturday cheered the judge’s ruling.
“This ruling is another stinging rejection of President Trump’s unconstitutional Muslim ban. We will keep fighting to permanently dismantle this un-American executive order,” Omar Jadwat, the director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement.
The White House on Friday said that the Justice Department intends to file for an emergency stay in the ruling.
