An appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration must admit thousands of people granted refugee status before Jan. 20, but declined to stop President Trump from halting the admission of new refugees.
The ruling, issued by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, often a reliably liberal court, did not directly address the question of whether the government must restore billions of dollars in funding to nonprofit groups that help resettle refugees after they have reached the United States.
But the decision was framed as a victory by Melissa Keaney, an attorney for the International Refugee Assistance Project, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs. She said that “tens of thousands” of people who were overseas would be processed and admitted to the United States as refugees.
“The Ninth Circuit’s ruling insures that U.S. refugee admission remains open in part,” she said.
But it was a rare victory as well for the Trump administration and its efforts to clamp down on immigration. Appellate judges have largely upheld rulings by the district courts blocking the president’s agenda. In contrast, Tuesday’s decision reversed in part an earlier ruling by Judge Jamal N. Whitehead of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, who was nominated to the bench by President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Judge Whitehead’s ruling effectively required the government to reinstate the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which has admitted more than three million refugees to the United States since it was established by statute in 1980.
Billions of dollars in funding for nonprofit groups that assist refugees with resettlement remain in limbo. After Judge Whitehead ordered the government to restore funding to the groups, the State Department terminated their contracts. A second order by Judge Whitehead, filed on Monday, ordered the government to reinstate the terminated funding. That order has not yet been considered by the appeals court.
Tuesday’s ruling by the appeals court is preliminary, and the court could eventually choose to either uphold or reverse Mr. Trump’s executive order in full.
