A federal
judge in Wisconsin dealt the first legal blow to President Donald Trump's
revised travel ban on Friday, barring enforcement of the policy to deny U.S.
entry to the wife and child of a Syrian refugee already granted asylum in the
United States.
The temporary
restraining order, granted by U.S. District Judge William Conley in Madison,
applies only to the family of the Syrian refugee, who brought the case
anonymously to protect the identities of his wife and daughter, still living in
the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo.
But it
represents the first of several challenges brought against Trump's newly
amended executive order, issued on March 6 and due to go into effect on March
16, to draw a court ruling in opposition to its enforcement.
Conley, chief
judge of the federal court in Wisconsin's western district and an appointee of
former President Barack Obama, concluded the plaintiff "has presented some
likelihood of success on the merits" of his case and that his family faces
"significant risk of irreparable harm" if forced to remain in Syria.
The plaintiff,
a Sunni Muslim, fled Syria to the United States in 2014 to "escape
near-certain death" at the hands of sectarian military forces fighting the
Syrian government in Aleppo, according to his lawsuit.
He
subsequently obtained asylum for his wife and their only surviving child, a
daughter, and their application had cleared the security vetting process and
was headed for final processing when it was halted by Trump's original travel
ban on Jan. 27.
That executive
order sought to ban admission to the United States of citizens from seven
Muslim-majority countries - Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Iraq
- for 120 days and to suspend entry of all refugees indefinitely.
The original
travel ban, which caused widespread chaos and protests at airports when first
implemented, was rescinded after the state of Washington won a nationwide
federal court order blocking further enforcement of the policy.
The modified
executive order reduced the number of excluded counties - removing Iraq from
the list - and lifted the indefinite refugee travel ban for Syrians. But
opponents from several states have gone to court seeking to halt its
implementation as well.
"The
court appreciates that there may be important differences between the original
executive order, and the revised executive order," Conley wrote in his
decision. "As the order applies to the plaintiff here, however, the court
finds his claims have at least some chance of prevailing for the reasons
articulated by other courts."
In a related
development on Friday, the federal judge in Seattle who imposed a nationwide
injunction on enforcement of the original travel ban refused a request to apply
that order to the revised policy, saying that lawyers from states opposed to
the measure needed to file more extensive court papers.
*REUTERS*
*REUTERS*
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