SEATTLE (AP) — A federal judge in Seattle on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s suspension of the nation’s refugee admissions system, saying that while the president has broad authority over who comes into the country, he cannot nullify the law passed by Congress establishing the program.
The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by individual refugees whose efforts to resettle in the U.S. have been halted as well as major refugee aid groups, who argued that they have had to lay off staff because the administration froze funding for processing refugee applications overseas as well as support, such as short-term rental assistance for those already in the U.S.
U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead, a 2023 appointee of former President Joe Biden, said after hearing arguments Tuesday that the president’s actions amounted to an “effective nullification of congressional will” in setting up the nation’s refugee admissions program. He promised to offer a fuller rationale in a written opinion in the next few days.
“The president has substantial discretion … to suspend refugee admissions,” Whitehead told the parties. “But that authority is not limitless.”
Justice Department lawyer August Flentje indicated to the judge that the government might quickly appeal.
Trump’s recent order said the refugee program — a form of legal migration to the U.S. 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 U.S. as refugees around the world, according to the administration.
Despite long-standing support from both 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 U.S. each year.
During arguments, Flentje insisted the order was well within Trump’s authority, citing a law that allows the president to deny entry to foreigners whose admission to the U.S. “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
“This is a broad authority that is essentially like a lawmaking authority conferred on the president,” Flentje said.
He also disputed the notion that the plaintiffs had suffered the sort of “irreparable” harms that would warrant granting a broad order blocking the administration’s actions. Most people whose travel to the U.S. was canceled at the last minute had already been moved to a third country where they were out of danger, he said, and the cancellation of funding for refugee aid groups amounted to a contract dispute.
The judge disagreed.
“I’ve read the declarations,” Whitehead said. “I have refugees stranded in dangerous places. I have families who have sold everything they’ve owned in advance of travel, which was canceled. I have spouses and children separated indefinitely from their family members in the U.S., resettlement agencies that have already laid off hundreds of staff.
“Aren’t these textbook examples of harms that can’t be undone by money damages?” he asked.
The plaintiffs 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 U.S. — has been severely inhibited by Trump’s order.
IRAP attorney Deepa Alagesan called Trump’s efforts to dismantle the refugee program “far-reaching and devastating.” She argued that the president had not shown how the entry of these refugees would be detrimental to the U.S., and at a news conference after the hearing, the plaintiffs and their supporters described refugees as a blessing to the country rather than a burden.
Tshishiku Henry, an activist who works on behalf of refugees in Washington state, called his presence outside the courthouse “the miracle of the second chance.” He and his wife resettled in the U.S. in 2018 after fleeing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he said.
“It wasn’t just a shelter. It was a lifeline,” Henry said. “You didn’t offer us just safety, but you gave us back our future.”
Last week, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., refused to immediately block the Trump administration’s actions in a similar lawsuit brought by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. That case faces another hearing Friday.
