A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to immediately resettle some 12,000 refugees into the U.S. under a court order that partially blocks President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at halting the refugee admissions program.
U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead, a 2023 appointee of former President Joe Biden, issued the order despite the Trump administration saying during a hearing last week that it should only have to process 160 refugees into the country and would likely appeal any order requiring thousands to be admitted.
“This Court will not entertain the Government’s result-oriented rewriting of a judicial order that clearly says what it says,” Whitehead wrote on Monday.
“The Government is free, of course, to seek further clarification from the Ninth Circuit. But the Government is not free to disobey statutory and constitutional law — and the direct orders of this Court and the Ninth Circuit — while it seeks such clarification.”
Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office suspending refugee resettlement and ordering the Department of Homeland Security to report back in 90 days on whether resuming resettlement would be in the interests of the U.S.
In February, Whitehead blocked the Trump administration’s