Travel to the USA

The latest update from the American Immigration Lawyers Association on travel to the USA is:

On January 27, 2017, President Trump issued an Executive Order (EO) entitled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.”

Last night, lawyers filed actions across the country to halt the January 27 EO. A federal judge in the Eastern District of New York issued the first order, granting a nationwide stay of removal preventing deportation for individuals with valid visas and approved refugee applications affected by the EO. The next decision came out of a federal court in Massachusetts – it went a bit further and barred federal officials from detaining or removing individuals subject to the EO. Two other courts also issued rulings. In a case filed in Virginia, the court ordered federal officials to provide lawyers access to “all legal permanent residents being detained at Dulles International Airport” and barred officials from deporting covered individuals for the next seven days. In the case out of Washington State, the federal judge barred the federal government from deporting two unnamed individuals from the United States.

Lawyers in the New York case are seeking clarification from the court.

The Department of Homeland Security put out a statement early today stating only that the agency “will comply with judicial orders.”

More clarity was provided by Secretary Kelly of the Department of Homeland Security, who released a press statement this evening clarifying how the EO applies to LPRs: “I hereby deem the entry of lawful permanent residents to be in the national interest.”

Anyone travelling to the US may wish to take copies of the relevant federal orders with them.  They can be found here:
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/stay_order_-_filed.pdf
https://aclum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/6-TRO-Jan-29-2017.pdf
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3437032/EDVA-TRO-Motion.pdf?utm_source=AILA+Mailing&utm_campaign=3fa9c35c1c-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_01_30&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3c0e619096-3fa9c35c1c-291860993

A useful statement from the Department of Homeland Security confirming that they will respect the orders can be found here:
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2017/01/29/dhs-statement-compliance-court-orders-and-president%E2%80%99s-executive-orders

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