The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement Saturday afternoon, after a week of self-inflicted chaos, not to mention moral upheaval, announcing that in order to comply with U.S. District Judge James Robart’s Friday ruling blocking the Trump administration’s de facto Muslim ban, it had “suspended any and all actions implementing the affected sections of the Executive Order.”
The Trump order targeted seven-Muslim majority countries, temporarily barring citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days. It also halted refugees from entering the country for 120 days and blocked Syrian refugees indefinitely. “DHS personnel will resume inspection of travelers in accordance with standard policy and procedure,” the DHS statement reads. “At the earliest possible time, the Department of Justice intends to file an emergency stay of this order and defend the president’s Executive Order, which is lawful and appropriate.”
“Following the judge’s ruling—and before the government’s announcements Saturday morning – the International Air Transportation Association, a worldwide airline industry trade group, cited US Customs and Border Protection in telling its members to follow procedures ‘as if the executive order never existed,’” CNN reports.
The president of the United States responded thusly:
