WASHINGTON: The Trump administration can stop approving new refugees for entry into the US but has to allow in people who were conditionally accepted before the president suspended the nation’s refugee admissions system, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The order narrowed a ruling from a federal judge in Seattle who found the program should be restarted.
The three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said the president has the power to restrict people from entering the country, pointing to a 2018 Supreme Court ruling upholding President Donald Trump’s ban on travel from several mostly Muslim countries during his first term.
Refugees who were conditionally approved by the government before Trump’s order halting the refugee program should still be allowed to resettle, the judges found.
The panel ruled on an emergency appeal of a ruling from US District Judge Jamal Whitehead who found that the president’s authority to suspend refugee admissions is not limitless and that Trump cannot nullify the law passed by Congress establishing the program.
Whitehead pointed to reports of refugees stranded in dangerous places, families separated from relatives in the US and people sold all their possessions for travel to the US that was later canceled.
Melissa Keaney, an attorney with the International Refugee Assistance Project, applauded the portions of the order that the appeals court left intact.
“We welcome this continued relief for tens of thousands of refugees who will now have the opportunity to restart their lives in the United States,” she said.
Whitehead, who was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden, also issued a second order Tuesday blocking the cancelation of refugee resettlement contracts.
Trump’s order said the refugee program — a form of legal migration to the US for people displaced by war, natural disaster or persecution — would be suspended because cities and communities had been taxed by “record levels of migration” and didn’t have the ability to “absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees.” There are 600,000 people being processed to come to the US as refugees around the world, according to the administration.
The Justice Department argued that the order was well within Trump’s authority.
Despite long-standing support from both major political parties for accepting thoroughly vetted refugees, the program has become politicized in recent years. Trump also temporarily halted it during his first term, and then dramatically decreased the number of refugees who could enter the US each year.
The plaintiffs said the president had not shown how the entry of these refugees would be detrimental to the US
They include the International Refugee Assistance Project on behalf of Church World Service, the Jewish refugee resettlement agency HIAS, Lutheran Community Services Northwest, and individual refugees and family members. They said their ability to provide critical services to refugees, including those already in the US, has been severely inhibited by Trump’s order.
Appeals court allows Trump administration to suspend approval of new refugees amid lawsuit
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Appeals court allows Trump administration to suspend approval of new refugees amid lawsuit
- Despite long-standing support from both major political parties for accepting thoroughly vetted refugees, the program has become politicized in recent years
US, Qatar discuss acquiring Ukrainian drones to down Iran’s Shaheds, source says
- The early-stage talks are taking place between government officials, not companies
- Zelensky said on Thursday evening the United States had asked Kyiv for help in downing Shaheds
KYIV: The US and Qatar are in discussions with Kyiv about acquiring Ukrainian interceptor drones as a cheap alternative to down Iranian Shahed UAVs amid the war in the Gulf, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The early-stage talks are taking place between government officials, not companies, and the technology being discussed includes systems to listen out for incoming enemy drones and disrupt their communication signals, the source said.
Qatar’s International Media Office did not respond to a request for comment. The Pentagon declined to comment.
KYIV HAD DISCUSSED SWAPPING DRONES FOR MISSILES
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday evening the United States had asked Kyiv for help in downing Shaheds.
“I have instructed that the necessary resources be provided and that Ukrainian specialists be present to ensure the necessary security,” he said, without giving further details or mentioning Ukrainian interceptor drones.
Zelensky said earlier that Ukraine had also received similar requests from Middle Eastern countries and that he would only go ahead with deals if they did not weaken Ukraine’s own defenses against Russia’s invasion.
He has also said he would be open to exchanging drones for air defense missiles.
A second source — a Western diplomat in the Gulf — said a Ukrainian delegation had traveled to Doha this week to meet with Qatari officials to share Ukraine’s experience in drone defense. A delegation also traveled to Abu Dhabi, the diplomat said.
Tehran has fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Gulf countries after the US and Israel launched a massive campaign of air strikes at Iran on Saturday and killed much of the Islamic Republic’s senior leadership.
Gulf countries have managed to intercept most of those strikes, making use of the US-made PAC-3 Patriot systems that Ukraine relies on to defend its own energy and military infrastructure from Russian missiles.
Ukraine, however, has developed far cheaper methods of downing the Shahed kamikaze drone during its four-year conflict with Russia, which has been using the Iranian-designed UAVs for much of the war.
Russia has launched 19,000 long-range drones at Ukraine this winter, most of which it has downed, Kyiv said.
After the Iran war erupted, Ukraine’s SBU security service warned Ukrainian companies not to sell weapons to Middle Eastern countries without permission from Kyiv, the first source said.
The SBU and Ukraine’s defense ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
A third source said Britain was supporting Ukraine in early-stage talks with Gulf states about the use of Ukrainian drones to intercept Shaheds.
That source said some drones could potentially be supplied by Project Octopus, an existing interceptor drone joint venture between London and Kyiv.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense did not respond to questions. Ukrspecsystems, the Ukrainian company behind the Octopus drone factory in the UK, declined to comment.
US, ALLIES HAVE USED HUNDREDS OF DEFENCE MISSILES
Zelensky said on Wednesday he had spoken with leaders of the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, without providing details.
Ukraine’s discussions with Washington were first reported by the Financial Times, but Doha’s interest and Britain’s involvement have not previously been reported.
The US and its Gulf allies have expended hundreds of air defense missiles, costing millions of dollars apiece, since the Iran conflict began.
Lockheed Martin produces around 600 PAC-3 missiles a year, although it plans to increase that to 2,000 under a seven-year deal with the Pentagon.
Kyiv has been running low on those missiles for months, raising concerns that it would be unable to down Russian ballistic missiles, against which the Patriot is the only effective weapon in its arsenal.
Zelensky has proposed swapping Ukrainian interceptor drones for missiles for Patriot systems.
Taras Tymochko from Come Back Alive, a Ukrainian foundation that has bought tens of thousands of interceptor drones with donations, said it was unclear who, other than Ukrainian crews, could operate them.
“It’s rather difficult to remove our pilots from their operations and send them to the Middle East,” Tymochko said. “There’s a significant need to scale up existing training capacities in Ukraine to share experience with our partners.”
