15 July, 2017
The Trump administration has said the ban won't apply to citizens of the six countries with a parent, spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or sibling already in the U.S. The administration has also exempted people who are engaged to another person who is in the U.S.
U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson ruled Thursday that the travel ban exemptions should include grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts and other relatives.
Announcing his decision, the judge said the government's classification of close family "represents the antithesis of common sense". Watson points out tartly that "grandparents are the epitome of close family members".
"The government's definition of "close familial relationship" is not only not compelled by the Supreme Court's June 26 decision, but it contradicts it", Watson wrote in his decision. "That simply can not be".
Although the travel ban still stands, Neal Katyal, a lawyer for those challenging Trump's executive order, called the Thursday ruling a "sweeping victory". The ban was temporarily suspended by a federal court in Seattle on February 3-a decision later backed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The administration is choosing to bypass the San Francisco-based appeals court that has ruled against it in the case and return to the high court. If the court as a whole is asked to weigh in, five votes are needed to grant such a request.
The only thing lacking here is the wink-wink, nudge-nudge that normally accompanies such subtle approaches.
The Supreme Court ruled that workers who accepted jobs from American companies, students who enrolled at a United States university or lecturers invited to address a USA audience would also be exempt.
The state of Hawaii immediately returned to court to argue that this was entirely too narrow a guideline for the real world, regardless of how many shrieking 90-year-old Yemeni teitas wildly firing AK-47s might haunt Steve Bannon's nightmares. He broadened the definition of what counts as a close relationship. For individuals, a close familial relationship is required.
The Trump travel ban makes it so that people from six countries are unable to come to the United States. A relationship created to avoid the ban would not be acceptable, they said. A revised version also did not pass legal muster. It's clearly why they wrote the last paragraph of their order. The Ninth Circuit Court upheld key parts of that decision, but did give the government permission to conduct studies of how to improve the "vetting" of foreigners seeking to travel to the U.S.
It said only those with "bona fide" family ties would be let into the USA, but the Trump administration decided that tie did not include grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and cousins.
