A federal judge in Seattle ruled Friday the Trump administration must take tangible steps to comply with an order to admit refugees who were approved for resettlement before Inauguration Day.
U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead granted a preliminary injunction in February, ordering the Trump administration to resume bringing refugees into the U.S. if they were conditionally approved before Jan. 20.
The Trump administration has withheld funding for resettlement agencies and stopped admissions. On April 2, the administration sent letters reinstating agreements with resettlement agencies, as ordered, “only to perform a bait and switch by immediately suspending those agreements,” according to the International Refugee Assistance Project, a legal advocacy organization suing the federal government.
Whitehead’s order on Friday reiterates the administration must comply with the previous orders and creates a detailed compliance plan.
The Trump administration must “immediately cease implementation of any suspension of refugee processing, travel, admissions, and domestic resettlement support for individuals who were conditionally approved for refugee status by (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) before January 20, 2025,” the order states.
Under the order, the two sides must jointly file court paperwork by 2 p.m. Friday, April 18, outlining specific deadlines for compliance and noting any issues where they disagree. Each side “must limit their portions of the joint submission to no more than 4,200 words total.”
The agreement must give specific deadlines, accounting for U.S. Supreme Court guidance to show “due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines.”
It also requires a reporting schedule for the administration to give updates, while addressing “specific obstacles to compliance identified by either party.”
Friday’s ruling comes as the administration has clamped down on immigration and stripped the visas of many international college students and recent graduates, including at least 15 in Washington state.
Trump halted the country’s refugee resettlement program on his first day in office as part of a series of executive orders, barring refugees from coming into the country and halting refugee application processing indefinitely.
In his order, he stated the entry of refugees under a resettlement program is “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” Federal funding for resettlement agencies was also frozen later that week.
Thousands of refugees who had already been cleared to resettle in the U.S. after fleeing war or persecution in their home countries — many with plane tickets in hand — were stranded abroad and left in limbo when the ban was announced.
Megan Hauptman, a litigation fellow at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said Friday’s ruling sends a message that the government must uphold its previous obligations.
“The government’s recent actions not only demonstrate noncompliance with court orders but open defiance that wreaks daily harm on refugees and the organizations that serve them,” Hauptman said in a news release. “This court order is a necessary step to ensure real progress is made to restore (the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program) so that it can continue to provide a lifeline for refugees seeking safety as Congress intended.”
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Church World Service, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Lutheran Community Services Northwest and nine plaintiffs affected by the ban.
U.S. Department of Justice lawyers on the case could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Material from The Seattle Times archives was included in this report.