Giving relief to many, a settlement has been reached by the U.S courts for people who were blocked from travelling to the U.S. Immigrants blocked from entering the United States under President Donald Trump’s first travel ban can now reapply for visas to enter the US.
In the brief period after the first travel ban went into effect on January 27, a number of people with valid visas were denied entry into the US and put on planes back to where they came from. Two of those people, Iraqi nationals Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, filed suit after being detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Less than 24 hours after Trump signed the executive order, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” a federal judge ruled in the their case, Darweesh et al. vs Trump, that the travel ban was unconstitutional. Because the case was filed as a class action lawsuit, the ruling temporarily blocked the travel ban from being implemented nationwide.
According to the settlement in the first travel ban case, all of those people who were denied entry but had proper documentation can now reapply for visas to enter the US.
“Although the government dragged its feet for far too long, it has finally agreed to do the right thing and provide those excluded under the first Muslim ban with proper notice of their right to come to the United States,” Lee Gelernt, ACLU’s deputy director for the Immigration Rights Project, said in a press release.
The government plans to send letters to notify those who were denied entry under the first travel ban that they are now eligible to reapply for a visa — using the most current information from their visa applications. The letters will include a list of free legal service providers who can help the applicants reapply, and they will be written in English, Farsi and Arabic, according to the settlement.
The Department of Justice will designate a liaison to review these applications for three months after the letters have been sent out, according to the settlement.
There is no guarantee that individuals who reapply will be given visas if they are found ineligible through the normal visa process, according to the settlement. The plaintiffs, Darweesh and Alshawi, agreed to drop any claims they had against the government in the settlement.
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