- Reince Priebus says measure will no longer apply to green-card holders
- Chief of staff says ‘couple dozen’ still detained as confusion continues
- Trump gives National Security Council seat to ex-Breitbart chief Bannon
Only a day after casting airports around the US into confusion
and hours after his first defeat in federal court, Donald Trump and his
advisers flew into a defense of his vague and chaotically enforced ban
on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus appeared to concede to the courts by saying the ban would no longer apply to green-card holders. Within minutes, he contradicted himself.
On Sunday morning, meanwhile, attorneys told reporters “rogue” border patrol agents were still detaining people or trying to deport them at airports around the US, and Trump burst on to Twitter to insist only draconian measures could protect the US from outside tumult.
“Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW,” the president wrote. “Look what is happening all over Europe and, indeed, the world – a horrible mess!”
Later, he added: “Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!”
Trump did not acknowledge the decisions by federal judges on Saturday night, which halted deportations for people who had arrived with valid visas, including already approved refugees and travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries that he singled out with an executive order on Friday.
That order suspended the US refugee program for 120 days, ended the Syrian refugee program indefinitely and halted travel from seven countries – cutting off legal residents from their families and jobs and throwing travel authorities into confusion.
Instead, Trump denigrated the New York Times, writing: “Somebody with aptitude and conviction should buy the FAKE NEWS and failing @nytimes and either run it correctly or let it fold with dignity!”
In extraordinary scenes around the US, scores of people were detained on arrival at airports, even though they were pre-approved or legal residents. Hundreds gathered to protest in solidarity with the travelers, and attorneys rushed to help detainees and file suits against the government.
Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, Priebus said 325,000 travelers had entered the US on Saturday and 109 were detained.
“Most of those people were moved out,” he said. “We’ve got a couple dozen more that remain and I would suspect that as long as they’re not awful people that they will move through before another half a day today.”
In an abrupt, apparent change from the White House’s original policy, Priebus said the order would no longer affect green-card holders. But he also suggested that “other countries” may be added to the travel ban.
“Maybe some of those people should be detained,” he said, although valid visa holders have already passed through an arduous screening and interview process.
In Brooklynon Saturday night, a judge swiftly granted a partial and temporary halt to deportations, noting that these visa holders would have been allowed into the US only two days earlier.
Similar orders from federal judges in Virginia and Massachusetts followedand Democrats rallied to help detained people and protesters, with Congressman John Lewis going to the Atlanta airport and New York mayor Bill de Blasio telling CNN’s State of the Union the order “violates our constitutional norms”.
The Department of Homeland Security responded to the judge’s ruling on Saturday morning, saying agents would continue to enforce Trump’s orders.
“No foreign national in a foreign land, without ties to the United States, has any unfettered right to demand entry into the United States or to demand immigration benefits in the United States,” the agency said. Only in the fourth paragraph of its reply did the DHS concede that officials “will comply with judicial orders”.
Priebus and another close Trump adviser, Kellyanne Conway, insisted that the president’s orders had not disrupted US domestic and foreign policy, caused problems at airports, or provoked scorn from European allies. Priebus told NBC there “wasn’t chaos” at airports and the administration would “apologize for nothing”.
Also Sunday, Conway falsely told Fox News Sunday the decision of the federal judge in New York “doesn’t really affect the executive order at all”.
Conway then said that problems for “1%” of travellers was “a small price to pay” for security. “This whole idea that they’re being separate and ripped from their family, it’s temporary.”
She added that people who had been detained should continue through screening – although they already had been approved – until authorities deemed them “no further threat”.
Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus appeared to concede to the courts by saying the ban would no longer apply to green-card holders. Within minutes, he contradicted himself.
On Sunday morning, meanwhile, attorneys told reporters “rogue” border patrol agents were still detaining people or trying to deport them at airports around the US, and Trump burst on to Twitter to insist only draconian measures could protect the US from outside tumult.
“Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW,” the president wrote. “Look what is happening all over Europe and, indeed, the world – a horrible mess!”
Later, he added: “Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!”
Trump did not acknowledge the decisions by federal judges on Saturday night, which halted deportations for people who had arrived with valid visas, including already approved refugees and travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries that he singled out with an executive order on Friday.
That order suspended the US refugee program for 120 days, ended the Syrian refugee program indefinitely and halted travel from seven countries – cutting off legal residents from their families and jobs and throwing travel authorities into confusion.
Instead, Trump denigrated the New York Times, writing: “Somebody with aptitude and conviction should buy the FAKE NEWS and failing @nytimes and either run it correctly or let it fold with dignity!”
In extraordinary scenes around the US, scores of people were detained on arrival at airports, even though they were pre-approved or legal residents. Hundreds gathered to protest in solidarity with the travelers, and attorneys rushed to help detainees and file suits against the government.
Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press, Priebus said 325,000 travelers had entered the US on Saturday and 109 were detained.
“Most of those people were moved out,” he said. “We’ve got a couple dozen more that remain and I would suspect that as long as they’re not awful people that they will move through before another half a day today.”
In an abrupt, apparent change from the White House’s original policy, Priebus said the order would no longer affect green-card holders. But he also suggested that “other countries” may be added to the travel ban.
“Maybe some of those people should be detained,” he said, although valid visa holders have already passed through an arduous screening and interview process.
In Brooklynon Saturday night, a judge swiftly granted a partial and temporary halt to deportations, noting that these visa holders would have been allowed into the US only two days earlier.
Similar orders from federal judges in Virginia and Massachusetts followedand Democrats rallied to help detained people and protesters, with Congressman John Lewis going to the Atlanta airport and New York mayor Bill de Blasio telling CNN’s State of the Union the order “violates our constitutional norms”.
The Department of Homeland Security responded to the judge’s ruling on Saturday morning, saying agents would continue to enforce Trump’s orders.
“No foreign national in a foreign land, without ties to the United States, has any unfettered right to demand entry into the United States or to demand immigration benefits in the United States,” the agency said. Only in the fourth paragraph of its reply did the DHS concede that officials “will comply with judicial orders”.
Priebus and another close Trump adviser, Kellyanne Conway, insisted that the president’s orders had not disrupted US domestic and foreign policy, caused problems at airports, or provoked scorn from European allies. Priebus told NBC there “wasn’t chaos” at airports and the administration would “apologize for nothing”.
Also Sunday, Conway falsely told Fox News Sunday the decision of the federal judge in New York “doesn’t really affect the executive order at all”.
Conway then said that problems for “1%” of travellers was “a small price to pay” for security. “This whole idea that they’re being separate and ripped from their family, it’s temporary.”
She added that people who had been detained should continue through screening – although they already had been approved – until authorities deemed them “no further threat”.
Only a few spoke out on Saturday, including senators Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse, who respectively called the order “unacceptable” for legal residents and “too broad”.
On Sunday, senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham went furthest, saying in a joint statement that the order “was not properly vetted”.
“Such a hasty process risks harmful results,” the senators said. “We should not stop green-card holders from returning to the country they call home. And we should not turn our backs on those refugees who have been shown through vetting to pose no demonstrable threat to our nation, and who have suffered unspeakable horrors, most of them women and children.
They concluded: “We fear this executive order will become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism.” In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation, McCain added that the order “in some areas will give Isis some more propaganda”.
The Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, said he would not completely defend or criticize the White House’s order.
“I am opposed to religious tests,” he told ABC’s This Week. “It’s going to be decided in the courts as to whether or not this has gone too far.”
Trump’s order is being challenged as a violation to the constitution’s guarantees of due process and against religious discrimination, meaning that its intent could prove an important factor in deciding its legality.
Trump moved away from calling for a “Muslim ban” late in his campaign, but as recently as Friday he said he wanted to show preference to Christian refugees. His adviser Rudy Giuliani has said he was asked to design “the right way to do it legally”.
Vice-president Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan, the two most powerful figures in Washington behind the president, both criticized his call to ban Muslim migration while Trump was a candidate last year.
A spokeswoman for Ryan said on Saturday that he supported the order and does not consider it a religious test.
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