US President Donald Trump makes remarks at a breakfast and listening session with key business leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Jan 23. dpa File Photo
WASHINGTON: A San Francisco court has rejected a motion by the US Justice Department to immediately reinstate US President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban.
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco posted the denial on its website early Sunday, hours after the Justice Department filed for an emergency stay of a suspension of Trump’s travel ban.
The Justice Department argued in its appeal that a Seattle district court’s ruling on Friday suspending Trump’s travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries “harms the public,” “second-guesses the president’s national security judgment,” and was “accompanied by virtually no legal analysis.”
Trump issued an executive order on January 27 that temporarily suspended the US refugee programme, banned travellers from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days and indefinitely banned Syrian refugees.
US Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday defended Trump’s executive order on immigration. Pence said on broadcaster CBS that the judge’s move to halt the order was wrong, and that the Trump administration was confident that it would be reversed in court.
Trump’s order is “fully consistent with statutory law that’s been enacted by Congress,” Pence said, adding that it is frustrating to see a judge in Washington state conducting federal policy.
Trump’s executive order is grounded in existing federal law giving the president the authority to determine who is allowed to enter the United States and who is not, he said.
The appeals court said the states of Washington and Minnesota, which filed the initial challenge to the travel ban, are to issue their opposition to the Justice Department emergency motion by 11:59 pm PST (0759 GMT Monday).
Trump’s reply in support of the emergency motion is due by Monday at 3 pm (2300 GMT). – dpa