Judge Mandates Trump to Accept 12,000 Refugees in U.S.

On Monday, a judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration must accept approximately 12,000 refugees into the United States, dealing a setback to the government's attempts to overhaul American immigration policies.

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The order clarifies the limits imposed by an appeals court ruling which allowed the Trump administration to suspend the refugee admissions system, but said it must admit people already granted refugee status with travel plans to the United States.

The Trump administration argued at a hearing last week that it should only have to admit 160 refugees who were scheduled to travel within two weeks of an executive order in January halting the system.

'Interpretive jiggerypokery'

However, US District Judge Jamal Whitehead dismissed the claim on Monday, stating, “the government’s interpretation is, to say the least, ‘interpretative jiggery-pokery’ of the utmost degree.”

"It requires not just reading between the lines" of the appeal decision "but hallucinating new text that simply is not there," Whitehead wrote in his order.

Overruled

Whitehead had originally blocked Trump's executive order halting refugee admissions, ruling in February that it likely violated the 1980 Refugee Act.

But his decision was overruled by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals a month later.

Whitehead argued that had the Ninth Circuit meant to enforce a two-week limit—which would decrease the protected group from roughly 12,000 down to 160 people—it would have stated this clearly.

"This Court will not entertain the government's result-oriented rewriting of a judicial order that clearly says what it says," he added.

The lawsuit had been brought by Jewish refugee non-profit HIAS, Christian group Church World Service, Lutheran Community Services Northwest and a number of individuals.

The nonprofit organisations stated in their lawsuit filed in February that numerous individuals who were just about to embark on their journey, after selling all of their possessions in their home country, found themselves suddenly stranded due to Trump's directive.

Legal route to citizenship

Refugee resettlement had been one of the few legal routes to eventual US citizenship, and had been embraced by former president Joe Biden, who expanded eligibility for the programme to include people affected by climate change.

Trump's White House campaign was marked by vitriol about immigrants.

He has also pushed a vigorous program of deportations, with highly publicized military flights taking handcuffed people to countries in Latin America.