WASHINGTON — A federal judge today blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order implementing an indefinite “pause” on refugee admissions to the United States, saying the directive appeared to amount to a “nullification” of federal law.
Trump’s order, which instructed the Department of Homeland Security to immediately stop processing refugee admissions, “has crossed the line from permissible discretionary action to effective nullification of congressional will,” said U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead, a Seattle-based appointee of former President Joe Biden.
“To be sure the president has substantial discretion … to suspend refugee admissions, but that authority is not limitless,” Whitehead continued. “I cannot ignore Congress’ detailed framework for refugee admissions and the limits it placed on the president’s ability to suspend the same. … Our system of separated powers demands no less.”
Whitehead’s injunction blocks key components of one of Trump’s Day One executive orders, which refugee resettlement groups said caused some would-be immigrants to be stranded overseas after selling their belongings before their scheduled travel to the U.S. was abruptly canceled.
Whitehead’s decision is yet another nationwide block by a federal judge of some of Trump’s central early-term priorities. Courts have blocked his administration’s freeze of nearly all federal grant spending and foreign assistance — though aid recipients say the administration has been sluggish to comply or outright defiant. And judges have also blocked Trump’s effort to grant Elon Musk’s allies in the Department of Government Efficiency access to some of the government’s most sensitive databases, which house data on trillions of dollars in transactions and private information of millions of Americans.
Whitehead issued his ruling from the bench Tuesday following a hearing on a suit brought by individual refugees, their family members and groups that have contracts to resettle refugees in the U.S. Whitehead said the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services had taken steps that exceeded Trump’s order without proper deliberation
“The defendant agencies’ implementation of the order likely violates bedrock principles of administrative law by vastly expanding the scope of the order with no reasoned explanation [and] no advance notice,” the judge said.
Justice Department Attorney August Flentje asked the judge to pause his order while the administration considers an appeal. Whitehead said he would decide on that question when he issues his formal written order
By KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN/Politico
