The Trump administration took a step back late Sunday from its sweeping temporary ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries, issuing a clarification that the order does not apply to green card holders “absent the receipt of significant derogatory information.”
“In applying the provisions of the president’s executive order, I hereby deem the entry of lawful permanent residents to be in the national interest,” Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly said in a statement. “Accordingly, absent the receipt of significant derogatory information indicating a serious threat to public safety and welfare, lawful permanent resident status will be a dispositive factor in our case-by-case determinations.”
Kelly’s statement was followed by one from Rep. Mike McCaul, the Texas Republican who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, that suggested support for Trump’s sweeping measure might be fading in the face of chaos at airports throughout the nation, opposition from veterans groups, and five federal court rulings that questioned Trump’s authority to impose such change.
“In light of the confusion and uncertainty created in the wake of the president’s executive order, it is clear adjustments are needed,” McCaul said. “We should not simply turn away individuals who already have lawful U.S. visas or green cards – like those who have risked their lives serving alongside our forces overseas or who call America their home.”
Trump officials remained unapologetic, however, and insisted that everything was working well, and immigration advocates said they believed the White House was still pursuing a policy that would violate migrants’ rights.
Farhana Khera, the executive director of Muslim Advocates, a legal advocacy group assisting stranded travelers, said that qualifying entry on the absence of “significant derogatory information” leaves the door open to invasive questioning and detentions that immigration attorneys have worked all weekend to stop.
“I think there are still a lot of questions about how information is going to be collected,” Khera said.
“I would say the administration is still in a defiant mode,” Khera said. “I haven’t seen any indication that they’re in any way backing off.
A senior administration official offered a similar assessment, insisting the order never applied to green card holders, but then adding, in a seeming contradiction, that green-card holders would be subjected to additional questioning.
The administration official also dismissed the importance of the court rulings against the order – DHS Secretary Kelly in a separate statement had promised to obey them – and said disruption caused by the order had been “minimal.” He cited the same figures that press secretary Sean Spicer had used in Sunday television appearances that only 109 of 325,000 arriving foreigners had been held for questioning under the new order.
“It’s our view that it’s been implemented successfully and according to administration policy,” the official said. “It has also resulted in extremely minimal disruption that more than outweighs the enormous benefits to our security.”
The rhetorical gamesmanship came after a weekend of conflict over the order that was played out in the nation’s busiest international airports and in five federal courtrooms where judges intervened to prevent the deportation of permanent residents and holders of valid U.S. visas.
In one case, Judge Dolly Gee of the Central District of California, ordered the government to cooperate in the return of a passenger who had been denied entry and sent back to Iran.
Wrenching scenes of family members waiting for detained loved ones dominated international arrival terminals while small armies of volunteer attorneys worked around the clock to stop deportations and free detained passengers.
Airports remained the front line in the battle. Crowds gathered at facilities in Miami, Dallas, Cleveland, Charlotte, New York, Washington, San Francisco and Chicago. Exasperation grew on all sides, and some immigration officials threw up their hands.
“They finally stopped talking to us altogether and told us to call President Trump,” said Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project.
A group funded by prominent libertarians Charles and David Koch, among the biggest players in U.S. politics, slammed the travel ban. Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the White House, and a chanting crowd of hundreds also besieged the entrance to the Trump Hotel a few blocks away.
Trump and his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, rejected charges that the president had exceeded his authority under the Constitution.
But Trump also issued a statement of his own, pledging that after 90 days, the United States would begin issuing visas “to all countries,” including the seven majority-Muslim countries encompassed by Friday’s order – Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
“My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months,” the statement said. “The seven countries named in the Executive Order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror. To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting.”