State Attorney General Douglas Chin says Trump administration guidelines on the enforcement of a partial travel and refugee ban violate the U.S. Supreme Court order that allowed the ban, and is asking a federal judge to step in.
Chin filed legal papers Thursday asking U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson to clarify the scope of the partial ban approved by the Supreme Court. As of close of business Thursday, Watson had not indicated when or whether he will consider Chin’s emergency request. Watson froze all local proceedings on the case in February.
The nation’s highest court said Monday that it has accepted the government’s appeal of a preliminary injunction that blocks sections of a Trump executive order to temporarily ban travel into the United States of foreign nationals from six mostly Muslim countries.
Watson handed down the injunction in March. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction earlier this month. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the government’s further appeal of the injunction in October.
In the meantime the high court said the government can restrict entry of foreign nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen “who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” Citing the circumstances of Ismail Elshikh, the co-plaintiff in the state’s challenge of the ban, and of University of Hawaii students from the targeted countries, the Supreme Court said for persons the relationship must be a close familial one. For entities the relationship must be formal, documented and formed in the ordinary course and not just for the purpose of evading the travel ban.
The government indicated it intended to start enforcing the ban at 2 p.m. Thursday, Hawaii time.
Chin said that since Tuesday he has been asking the government how it intends to implement the partial ban but did not receive a response. Then on Thursday, just hours before the start of the enforcement, the State Department conducted a briefing on the guidelines and published them on its website.
The guidelines define close family as a parent (including parent-in-law), spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son- or daughter-in-law, or half, whole or step-sibling with sufficient documentation or other verifiable information supporting that relationship. The guidelines exclude grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers- and sisters-in-law, and other extended family members.
“In Hawaii, close family includes many of the people that the government decided on its own to exclude from that definition,” which might violate the Supreme Court’s order, Chin said.
Chin also said the government guidelines allow it to ban refugees, even if they have a documented agreement with a local sponsor and a place to live, and has instructed consulates to deny entry whenever they are unsure whether a bona fide relationship exists.
The State Department says for refugees to gain entry, formal assurance from a resettlement agency in the U.S. in and of itself is not sufficient to establish a qualifying relationship. The department says the refugee will need a formal, documented relationship with the agency that was not formed just to get around the travel ban.
The department said refugees already scheduled for travel through July 6 will be permitted to travel regardless of whether they have a bona fide relationship with a person or entity. The department also said it will provide additional guidance in the coming days about the process for verifying a relationship.
Motion to clarify Supreme Court's ruling of the President's travel ban by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd