Trump’s Travel Restrictions Relitigated in House Committees
Trump’s Travel Restrictions Relitigated in House Committees
(Bloomberg) -- Administration officials defended President Donald Trump’s ban on visas for some majority-Muslim countries, arguing that the restrictions are a necessary security measure.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler and other Democrats questioned officials from the State Department, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security on whether the waiver process for immigrants seeking entry from Muslim-majority countries is unconstitutional and discriminatory.
“Sadly, the inclusion of a phony waiver process, along with the naming of a couple of non-Muslim majority countries was enough to convince the Supreme Court that this last version of the ban passed constitutional muster,” Nadler said. “We are now living with the consequences of that fateful decision.”
Tuesday’s joint hearing by subcommittees of the House Judiciary and House Foreign Affairs was the first congressional examination of the so-called “Muslim ban,” that Trump promised during his 2016 campaign and initially tried to roll out in the first month of his presidency. The administration revised the policy two times before settling on a version that the Supreme Court ultimately upheld in a June 2018 ruling.
Edward Ramotowski, a State Department deputy assistant secretary, argued that the final rewrite of the policy, released in September 2017, represents a fair and necessary step to determine the threat posed by would-be visitors from foreign countries.
“The proclamation and the strides we made in information sharing and border security with many foreign counterparts have been important factors in strengthening the United States immigration system,” Ramotowski said.
‘Risk in Mind’
He added that the administration was trying to replace the waiver process with an automated system to cut down on the time needed to screen applicants.
DHS is also working on a process to evaluate other governments on their policies and information-sharing practices, according to Elizabeth Neumann, a DHS assistant secretary who also testified.
“We do have to evaluate country by country,” Neumann said. “We want to do it with risk in mind.”
Trump’s original executive order barred immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya from entering the U.S. for 90 days. It also put an indefinite halt on entry by all Syrian refugees and 120-day pause on all other refugees.
The order also called for a review to suspend a visa waiver program that allows people from 38 countries renew their travel documents without an in-person interview.
The Supreme Court’s decision last year to uphold the Trump administration’s third travel ban was a defeat for lawmakers and immigration advocates who opposed the executive order.
To contact the reporter on this story: Evan Sully in Washington at esully2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anna Edgerton at aedgerton@bloomberg.net, John Harney
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