Trump admin launches bid to lift restrictions on 'Muslim ban'
11 Sep 2017 5:29 PM GMT
Washington: The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to intervene once again on behalf of his newly reinstated travel ban.
The Justice Department filed an emergency application to bar a 9th Circuit Court ruling that would allow refugees to enter the country if they have a formal agreement with a refugee resettlement agency.
Trump's travel ban – which the Supreme Court partially reinstated in June – bars residents of six Muslim-majority countries from entering the US, unless they have a "bona fide relationship" with a family member in the country.
However, the administration threw in the towel for now on efforts to insist that grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins of US citizens should be covered by the ban despite the Supreme Court ordering an exemption for close family members.
A federal judge in Hawaii ruled against the federal government on both issues. Last week, a 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals panel declined to disturb that ruling.
The dispute taken to the justices on Monday addresses how much of the travel ban can be enforced until the Supreme Court rules on the broader issues. The justices are scheduled to hear arguments Oct. 10 on a pair of cases related to the ban. The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court ruled last week to extend the list of family members exempted from the ban. They also ruled to exempt those refugees with an arrangement with a US-based aid group – something the Trump administration took issue with.
Meanwhile, Memorial University is benefiting from US President Donald Trump's restrictions on immigration for a select group of Muslim-majority countries.
When Trump announced the travel ban earlier this year, Memorial advertised that its doors were open to students from the affected countries, as well as every other country on the planet.
Graduate applications from the six countries affected by Trump's travel ban increased by 46 per cent, while admissions from those countries increased by 25 percent.
Memorial University has three recruitment teams — one on the St. John's campus, one at the Marine Institute, and another on the Grenfell Campus in Corner Brook.
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