U.S. sets policy for enforcement of entry limits

Arrivals from six countries require ‘close’ ties to U.S.

Abdullah Alghazali hugs his 13-year-old son Ali Abdullah Alghazali after the Yemeni boy got through the arrival gate Feb. 5 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. U.S. officials set new travel ban rules Wednesday that apply to visitors from Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Yemen.
Abdullah Alghazali hugs his 13-year-old son Ali Abdullah Alghazali after the Yemeni boy got through the arrival gate Feb. 5 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. U.S. officials set new travel ban rules Wednesday that apply to visitors from Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Yemen.

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's administration has set new criteria for visa applicants from six mainly Muslim nations and for all refugees that require a "close" family or business tie to the United States. The move comes after the Supreme Court partially restored Trump's executive order that was widely criticized as a ban on Muslims.

Visas that have already been approved will not be revoked, but instructions issued by the State Department say that new applicants from Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Yemen must prove a relationship with a parent, spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or sibling already in the United States to be eligible.

The same requirement, with some exceptions, holds for would-be refugees from all nations who are still awaiting approval for admission to the U.S.

Grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, fiancees and other extended family members are not considered to be close relationships, according to the guidelines that were issued in a cable sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates late Wednesday.

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The new rules take effect today, according to the cable.

On Monday, the Supreme Court partially lifted lower court injunctions against Trump's executive order that had temporarily banned visas for citizens of the six countries. The justices' ruling exempted applicants from the ban if they could prove a "bona fide relationship" with a person or entity in the U.S., but the court offered only broad guidelines -- suggesting such a relationship would include a relative, job offer or invitation to lecture in the U.S. -- as to how that should be defined.

Senior officials from the departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security had labored since the court's decision to clarify the ruling, and Wednesday's instructions were the result.

As far as business or professional links are concerned, the State Department said a legitimate relationship must be "formal, documented and formed in the ordinary course rather than for the purpose of evading" the ban. Journalists, students, workers or lecturers who have valid invitations or employment contracts in the U.S. would be exempt from the ban.

The exemption does not apply to those who seek a relationship with an American business or educational institution purely for the purpose of avoiding the rules, the cable said. A hotel reservation or car rental contract, even if it was prepaid, would also not count, it said.

Hoping to prevent the sorts of chaos and confusion that came after the government's first travel ban in January, advocates for immigrants and refugees are calling for clarity. Others have filed Freedom of Information Act requests, demanding information about how the directive will be implemented. Some filed papers Wednesday in a federal court in Washington, D.C., seeking to stop key parts of the executive order.

Opponents have said the president's directive amounts to a ban on Muslims and therefore violates the First Amendment's prohibition on government establishment of religion, an accusation the government has denied.

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Trump has said his travel ban is aimed at preventing terrorist attacks in the U.S.

"As president," he said in praising the court's decision Monday, "I cannot allow people into our country who want to do us harm. I want people who can love the United States and all of its citizens, and who will be hardworking and productive."

On Wednesday, a coalition of Iranian-American advocacy groups filed papers in a federal court in Washington asking a judge to block key parts of the travel ban from going into effect.

"The public has a strong interest in avoiding the sort of chaos seen at airports when the first executive order went into effect," the court filing says, "and in permitting refugee applicants who have been fully vetted to enter the United States -- in accordance with our obligations under international law and the highest ideals upon which our country was founded."

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Refugees in limbo

The Supreme Court order also placed limitations on Trump's plan to temporarily halt all refugee admissions. But that may have minimal effect for now. Of the 50,000 refugees the government planned to accept in the current budget year, more than 48,900 have been allowed to enter the U.S.

The State Department has said that the few remaining refugees to be admitted this year will not have to prove a "bona fide relationship." A new cap won't be in place until the start of the budget year in October, around the time that the Supreme Court considers the case.

State Department spokesman Heather Nauert said refugees who are scheduled to travel to the U.S. through July 6 can proceed to do so.

"Beyond July the 6th, we are not totally certain how that will work because, again, this is in flux, this is in progress," she said.

Trump ordered the refugee ban and a travel ban affecting the six countries, plus Iraq, shortly after taking office. He said it was needed to protect the U.S. from terrorists, but opponents said it was unfairly harsh and was intended to meet a Trump campaign promise to keep Muslims out of the United States.

After a federal judge struck down the bans, Trump signed a revised order intended to overcome legal hurdles. That was also struck down by lower courts, but the Supreme Court's action Monday partially reinstated it.

The refugee limit puts some in legal limbo, particularly those from Sudan.

Dozens of Sudanese activists living in Egypt as refugees said they are not safe because Sudanese agents operating in the country under tacit Egyptian approval regularly threaten them and their families, sometimes targeting them with violence.

Tayeb Ibrahim, who has worked to expose Sudanese government abuses in areas it controls in the country's volatile South Kordofan province, was partially blinded after being attacked with acid by Sudanese government agents, and narrowly escaped being taken back to Sudan after being kidnapped in Egypt.

"I'm totally depressed. I was approved over a year ago for resettlement, just passed my medical exam last week and was hoping to see family living in Iowa. But instead I'll be stuck here worried about my physical safety," said the 40-year-old Ibrahim, who like many Sudanese refugees has no travel documents and thus cannot leave Egypt.

Sudanese living in Egypt regularly complain of discrimination and harassment, while pro-democracy activists and opponents of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's regime say they face abuses by both Sudanese and Egyptian security forces.

Rights groups have in the past documented cases in which pro-democracy activists have been targeted by Sudanese secret police with violence, including rape. Egypt has denied any involvement in such targeted abuse.

There are officially about 36,000 Sudanese with refugee status in Egypt, most of them former residents of Sudan's Darfur region who fled government-sponsored Islamic and tribal Janjaweed militias in a separatist conflict that was front-page news a decade ago but has now been eclipsed by other regional crises in Syria and Iraq.

"It's like having our own little Islamic State group in Sudan, sponsored by the government, who has been persecuting us for years," said Awad, a 33-year-old Sudanese women's-rights activist who has lived in Cairo since 2012. During that time, she said, she has been the victim of burglaries and an attack by Sudanese men on a motorbike. Like others interviewed, she declined to give her last name out of fears for her safety.

Sudan's Darfur region has been the scene of violent conflict since 2003, when ethnic Africans rebelled against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in the capital, Khartoum, accusing it of discrimination and neglect. The United Nations estimates 300,000 people have died in the conflict and some 2.7 million have fled their homes.

Al-Bashir, who rose to power in 1989, is on the International Criminal Court's wanted list, accused of committing crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in Darfur. The criminal court has issued two warrants for al-Bashir's arrest, in March 2009 and July 2010.

Sudan has been under U.S. financial sanctions since the 1990s after it was designated a "state sponsor of terrorism." But a week before leaving office, President Barack Obama eased some sanctions on Sudan, citing positive actions by the government, including a reduction in offensive military activity and its cooperation with the U.S. to address regional conflict and the threat of terrorism.

Activists awaiting resettlement in the U.S. say it's unfair to punish victims of al-Bashir's government, which has pushed for an ultraconservative interpretation of Islam and actively supported religiously inspired fighters to attack his opponents.

"We're the victims, but we are paying the price of perpetrators," said Basham, a 36-year-old former mechanical engineering student who said he left Sudan in 2002 after being tortured for organizing information sessions at his university about abuses in South Kordofan and for working as a translator for human-rights groups. He said he was selected for resettlement to the U.S. in 2016.

Awad said she has been vetted for three years by U.S. and United Nations officials, and had hoped to be approved for resettlement in Kansas or Minnesota, states with large Sudanese communities.

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo declined to comment on the cases, as did the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration, which manages the vetting process. The U.S. State Department has said it would provide additional details on how the ban would affect migration "after consultation with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security."

Meanwhile, rights groups, including U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, say Washington should re-evaluate its moves to lift sanctions on Sudan and insist certain criteria be met first, such as outlawing punishments like stoning, as well as dress code bans and official discrimination against women and girls.

Information for this article was contributed by Jeremy Redmon of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and by Matthew Lee, Alicia A. Caldwell, Danica Kirka, Matthew Barakat, Brian Rohan and staff members of The Associated Press.

A Section on 06/29/2017

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