Federal Judge Temporarily Halts Trump Order on Immigration, Refugees

A federal judge in Seattle issued a ruling that temporarily blocks President Donald Trump ’s executive order on immigration and refugees, a decision that applies nationwide to tens of thousands of people holding visas to travel to the U.S.

While previous court orders addressed the plight of detained travelers, U.S. District Judge James Robart ’s more-sweeping ruling stops the executive order entirely.

A week ago, Mr. Trump signed an executive order suspending immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen—for at least 90 days, calling it a needed move to keep terrorists from entering the U.S. It also froze the entire U.S. refugee program for four months, barred Syrians from entering as refugees indefinitely and cut the number of refugees the U.S. will accept in fiscal year 2017 to 50,000, less than half the number that former President Barack Obama called for this year.

Judge Robart, in his seven-page ruling, wrote that he granted the restraining order, in part, because the plaintiffs were likely to win on their constitutional claims. Not halting the president’s executive order immediately would cause the plaintiffs “irreparable injury,” the judge wrote.

“The Executive Order adversely affects the States’ residents in areas of employment, education, business, family relations and freedom to travel,” Judge Robart wrote. “In addition, the States themselves are harmed by virtue of the damage that implementation of the Executive Order has inflicted upon the operations and missions of their public universities and other institutions of higher learning…These harms are significant and ongoing.”

In a Saturday morning tweet, the president sharply criticized the judge.

“The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!” Trump wrote.

The suit that led to Judge Robart’s ruling was filed by the state of Washington. The state’s attorney general, Bob Ferguson, said, “What the judge announced today is nationwide—the president’s executive order does not apply.”

Airlines including Air France and Deutsche Lufthansa AG responded to the ruling Saturday, saying all passengers with valid travel documents including from the seven countries included in the ban would be allowed to travel to the U.S.

How immigration officials throughout the country will handle the judge’s temporary halt of Mr. Trump’s order wasn’t immediately clear.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said in a statement that the Justice Department “intends to file an emergency stay of this order and defend the executive order of the president, which we believe is lawful and appropriate.” An earlier version of his statement, released by the White House, called the order “outrageous.” On Saturday, the Justice Department filed a notice of appeal to the Seattle court’s ruling.