On another day of chaotic developments over the week-old order, the State Department reversed its cancellation of visas for people from the affected countries and began efforts to resettle refugees, small numbers of travelers began venturing to airports to try to fly to the United States, and Mr. Trump mounted a harsh personal attack on the judge.
.. Judge Robart, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, declared in his ruling that “there’s no support” for the administration’s argument that “we have to protect the U.S. from individuals” from the affected countries, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan and Libya.
.. The White House appeared determined to have Judge Robart’s ruling struck down swiftly. In his first statement on the matter on Friday evening, the press secretary, Sean Spicer, described the judge’s action as “outrageous.” Minutes later, the White House issued a new statement deleting the word outrageous.
.. It recalled the attacks he made during the presidential campaign on a federal district judge in California who was presiding over a class-action lawsuit involving Trump University.
.. Democrats said the president’s criticism of Judge Robart was a dangerous development. Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that Mr. Trump seemed “intent on precipitating a constitutional crisis.” Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, whose state filed the suit that led to the injunction, said the attack was “beneath the dignity” of the presidency and could “lead America to calamity.”
.. And in a third message, he asserted, without evidence, that some Middle Eastern countries supported the immigration order. “Interesting that certain Middle-Eastern countries agree with the ban,” he wrote. “They know that if certain people are allowed in it’s death & destruction!”
.. “The executive order adversely affects the states’ residents in areas of employment, education, business, family relations and freedom to travel,” Judge Robart wrote. He said the states had been hurt because the order affected their public universities and their tax base.
.. The judge also barred the administration from enforcing its limits on accepting refugees, including “any action that prioritizes the refugee claims of certain religious minorities.”
.. The next question at the trial court level will be whether Judge Robart will make the temporary restraining order more permanent by issuing a preliminary injunction.
Court Temporarily Blocks Trump’s Travel Ban, and Airlines Are Told to Allow Passengers
The federal government was “arguing that we have to protect the U.S. from individuals from these countries, and there’s no support for that,” said the judge, James Robart of Federal District Court for the Western District of Washington, an appointee of President George W. Bush, in a decision delivered from the bench.
.. Judge Robart temporarily barred the administration from enforcing two parts of Mr. Trump’s order: its 90-day suspension of entry into the United States of people from the seven countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — and its limits on accepting refugees, including “any action that prioritizes the refugee claims of certain religious minorities.”
.. The order said that when immigration from the seven countries resumed, persecuted religious minorities would be given preference, and in an interview the day of the signing, Mr. Trump said the United States would give Christians from those countries priority because they had suffered “more so than others.”
.. lawyers for some travelers had described getting one as a Kafkaesque exercise, with the State Department’s website warning that no emergency applications would be heard, and Customs and Border Protection agents at United States airports all but unreachable because their clients were not being allowed to board planes.
.. In the Virginia courtroom, spectators gasped when a lawyer for the government told Judge Brinkema, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, that more than 100,000 visas had been revoked as part of Mr. Trump’s order.
.. the legal arguments in the last few days have centered on the government’s contention that there is “no potential irreparable harm” to justify keeping the extraordinary orders in place pending fuller briefing and arguments.
Where America’s Terrorists Actually Come From
Syrian refugees have committed zero attacks in the United States.
.. But after sifting through databases, media reports, court documents, and other sources, Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, has arrived at a striking finding: Nationals of the seven countries singled out by Trump have killed zero people in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and 2015.
.. Between 1975 and 2015, the “annual chance of being murdered by somebody other than a foreign-born terrorist was 252.9 times greater than the chance of dying in a terrorist attack committed by a foreign-born terrorist,” according to Nowrasteh.
..“[E]very jihadist who conducted a lethal attack inside the United States since 9/11 was a citizen or legal resident,” New America reports. During that time period, more than 80 percent of individuals who were charged with or died engaging in jihadist terrorism or related activities inside the United States have been U.S. citizens or permanent reside
Trump’s Talk About Muslims Led Acting Attorney General to Defy Ban
As Republicans seethed over President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration in early 2015, Senator Jeff Sessions sharply questioned Sally Q. Yates about whether she had the independent streak needed to be the Justice Department’s second in command.
.. “If the views the president wants to execute are unlawful, should the attorney general or the deputy attorney general say no?” Mr. Sessions asked during a confirmation hearing for Ms. Yates.
.. President Trump’s own words convinced her that his executive order on immigration was intended to single out Muslims, senior officials said. Hours after she refused to defend that order, Mr. Trump fired her.
.. The Office of Legal Counsel of the Justice Department had reviewed the order and signed off on its legality. But Ms. Yates and her staff lawyers believed that the department had to consider the intent of the order, which she said appeared intended to single out people based on religion.
“We have comments from the president about what this is supposed to do,” Ms Yates said in one meeting on Monday, according to two people involved in the discussions. She later added, “The intent was clear from the face of it.”
.. Mr. Trump had campaigned on a promise to single out Muslims for immigration restrictions. One of his advisers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, said in an interview that Mr. Trump wanted a Muslim ban but needed “the right way to do it legally.” Mr. Trump said in a later interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network that Christian refugees would be given priority for entry visas to the United States.
.. Ms. Yates considered resigning, the officials said, but concluded that doing so would leave the decision to whomever succeeded her, even if in a temporary capacity.
.. Mr. Sessions, an immigration hard-liner, argued that the Justice Department should have refused to support Mr. Obama’s executive action liberalizing immigration policy.
Ms. Yates promised that she would stand up to the president, if necessary.
.. Last year, Ms. Yates and Ms. Lynch earned the ire of Democrats — including many in the department — for not intervening and prohibiting the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, from sending a letter to Congress in the final days of the presidential campaign.