Judge orders Trump administration to admit roughly 12,000 refugees

SEATTLE – A judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to admit some 12,000 refugees into the United States under a court order partially blocking the president’s efforts to suspend the nation’s refugee admissions program.

The order from U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead followed arguments from the Justice Department and refugee resettlement agencies over how to interpret a federal appeals court ruling that significantly narrowed an earlier decision from Whitehead.

During a hearing last week, the administration said it should only have to process 160 refugees into the country and that it would likely appeal any order requiring it to admit thousands. But the judge dismissed the government’s analysis, saying it required “not just reading between the lines” of the 9th Circuit’s ruling, “but hallucinating new text that simply is not there.”

“This Court will not entertain the Government’s result-oriented rewriting of a judicial order that clearly says what it says,” Whitehead wrote Monday. “The Government is free, of course, to seek further clarification from the Ninth Circuit. But the Government is not free to disobey statutory and constitutional law — and the direct orders of this Court and the Ninth Circuit — while it seeks such clarification.”

The refugee program, created by Congress in 1980, is a form of legal migration to the U.S. for people displaced by war, natural disaster or persecution — a process that often takes years and involves significant vetting. It is different from asylum, by which people newly arrived in the U.S. can seek permission to remain because they fear persecution in their home country.

Upon beginning his second term on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump issued an executive order suspending the program.

That triggered a lawsuit by individual refugees whose efforts to resettle in the U.S. have been halted as well as major refugee aid groups, who argued that they have had to lay off staff. The groups said the administration froze their funding for processing refugee applications overseas and providing support, such as short-term rental assistance for those already in the U.S.

Whitehead, a 2023 appointee of former President Joe Biden, blocked enforcement of Trump’s order, saying it amounted to an “effective nullification of congressional will” in setting up the nation’s refugee admissions program.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely put Whitehead’s decision on hold in March, finding that the administration was likely to win the case given the president’s broad authority to determine who is allowed to enter the country.

But the appeals court also said the government should continue processing those who had already been approved for travel to the U.S., some of whom had upended their lives abroad by selling property or quitting their jobs. Such people had relied on promises made by the federal government that they would be admitted, the court found.

The appeals court said the government must continue processing refugees who already had “arranged and confirmable” travel plans before Jan. 20 to come to the U.S. The Justice Department put the number of refugees in that category at about 12,000.

During a hearing last week over how to interpret and enforce the appeals court ruling, Justice Department lawyer David Kim said the government took it to mean that the only refugees who should be processed for entry to the U.S. are those who were scheduled to travel to the U.S. within two weeks of Trump’s order. There were far fewer refugees who met that definition — just 160, the department said.

The judge and lawyers for refugee resettlement organizations disagreed with the government’s reading. They noted that nothing in the 9th Circuit’s order suggested a two-week window. Instead, Whitehead said, the order should apply to any refugees who had been approved to come to the U.S. and had established travel plans — regardless of when that travel was scheduled for.

Whitehead ordered the administration within the next seven days to instruct agency offices and staff, including U.S. embassies, to resume processing the cases of refugees who are protected by the court order. He also told the government to immediately take steps to facilitate admission to the U.S. for those refugees whose clearances, including medical and security authorizations, have not yet lapsed.