Trump To Sign New Executive Order On Travel Bans Today: Will Exclude Iraq, Green Card Holders
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Mar 6, 2017
Moments ago, Kellyanne Conway confirmed that President Donald Trump will sign a new executive order on immigration Monday, which as Reuters reported earlier, will remove Iraq from the list of countries targeted in the travel ban. The revised order comes over a month after his controversial first attempt was blocked in the courts. According to a Reuters source, the new executive order would keep a 90-day ban on travel to the United States by citizens of six Muslim-majority nations – Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Iraq has been removed from the list of countries in the original Jan 27 order because the Iraqi government had imposed new vetting procedures, such as heightened visa screening and data sharing, and because of its work with the United States in countering Islamic State militants. In other words, Iraq complained the most vocally and Trump’s advisors conceded that there is more to be lost than gained by keeping Iraq off the list.
In another important change, the new order is expected to apply only to future visa applicants from the targeted countries, with current visa holders and legal permanent residents, or green-card holders, unaffected. That is a significant rollback from the original, which impacted nearly 60,000 existing visa holders from seven nations, according to the State Department. The original order was unclear about the treatment of green-card holders.
More than two dozen lawsuits were filed in U.S. courts against the original travel ban, and the state of Washington succeeded in having it suspended by the 9th Circuit court of Appeals by arguing that it violated constitutional protections against religious discrimination. Trump publicly criticized judges who ruled against him and vowed to fight the case in the Supreme Court, but then decided to draw up a new order with changes aimed at making it easier to defend in the courts.
Furthermore, while the first order imposed restrictions immediately, the new directive would have an undefined implementation phase-in delay to limit the disruptions that created havoc for some travelers. Refugees who are “in transit” and have already been approved would be able to travel to the United States. Trump’s original order barred travelers from the seven nations from entering for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days. Refugees from Syria were to be banned indefinitely, but under the new order they are not given separate treatment.
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