Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals permits presidential suspension of refugee admissions
Court-ordered limits on pausing refugee admissions are mostly removed, allowing the admissions halt to stand. Injunctions still block ending services for already-admitted refugees and ending support-center agreements.
Change
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that President Donald Trump may indefinitely suspend admissions under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), overturning lower-court injunctions and leaving more than 100,000 vetted, conditionally approved refugees unable to be resettled.
Why it matters
Resettlement organizations and U.S. agencies can no longer rely on the district court's injunctions to admit conditionally approved refugees and must stop processing travel and final placements for those cases. At the same time, federal agencies and resettlement support centers remain legally required to continue services to refugees already admitted because injunctions protecting those services were left intact.
Implications
- — U.S. Department of State refugee-admissions officials must halt scheduling travel and final admission processing for conditionally approved refugees under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) — continuing such processing would contravene the appeals court ruling.
- — Resettlement support centers and nonprofit refugee resettlement agencies must continue providing services and maintain cooperative agreements for refugees already admitted — terminating support would risk violating the surviving injunctions.
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