Judge blocks Donald Trump's third immigration veto except for Venezuela

[OyaYansa]

A federal judge in Hawaii temporarily blocked the third immigration veto imposed by US President Donald Trump, which was due to enter into force on Wednesday, but kept the part of the measure affecting Venezuela.

The new veto, proclaimed on September 24, prevents indefinitely entry to the United States. of the majority of citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea, as well as certain officials of Venezuela and their relatives, although the order of the judge does not affect these last two countries.

Judge Derrick Watson of Honolulu issued the ruling in response to a lawsuit filed by the state of Hawaii by a mosque in that city by a magnet and two residents of that state with relatives in the affected countries.

The president's controversial move "suffers precisely the same problems as its predecessor: it lacks sufficient basis to maintain that the entry of more than 150 million nationals from the six specified countries would be detrimental to US interests," Watson explained .

October 18 was Trump's day to implement its new veto, but now it can not enter into force as far as the six Muslim majority countries are concerned, although it is likely that the government will appeal against the judge's order .

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders criticized the judge's "dangerously flawed order," which "undermines the president's efforts to keep the American people safe."

"The Justice Department will vigorously defend the president's legal action," Sanders said in a statement, which predicted that "the judicial system will eventually endorse" the immigration veto.

Acting National Security Secretary Elaine Duke confirmed that her department "will comply" with the court order, but predicted that the government will eventually prevail in the legal battle.

In the case of Venezuela, veto restrictions only affect some officials and their "immediate family."

Specifically, Venezuelan officials responsible for providing the US are sanctioned. information on the identity of Venezuelans entering their territory, that is, workers from the Ministry of Po[CENSORED]r Power for Internal Relations, Justice and Peace, as well as the Administrative Service for Identification, Migration and Aliens, among other institutions.

According to Trump in the proclamation of his veto, the government of Nicolás Maduro "does not cooperate in verifying if its citizens represent threats to the national security or the public security" of the USA. and further refuses to "adequately share information related to public security and terrorism".

In response, Trump decided to restrict the entry into the United States of the officials in charge of those functions with the objective of putting pressure on the Venezuelan Executive to improve its information exchange with the United States.

Most Venezuelans will not suffer such impediments because Trump's government is able to verify their personal information by turning to "alternative sources," whose origin is not specified in the presidential veto order.

However, starting this Wednesday, Venezuelans who are in the United States with a visa may be subject to "appropriate additional measures" to ensure that their information is up-to-date and in order.

Sudan managed to break the list of nations originally included in that veto by improving the exchange of security and terrorism information with the United States.

The other five nations with a majority of Islamists (Iran, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Libya) continued to be included in the veto.

Trump also included North Korea in its veto, which has also not been affected by the blockade of the measure, because the regime of Kim Jong-un refuses to exchange "any kind" of information from the United States, according to in his presidential proclamation.

Meanwhile, Chad, also a Muslim majority and a major US ally. in the fight against terrorism, appears among the nations with restrictions because it presents "deficiencies" in the exchange of information and because several terrorist groups, such as Boko Haram and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), operate in their territory or near he.

However, the State Department said Tuesday that the Chadian government "has shown a clear will" to correct those issues, and suggested that it could be removed from the list in the not too distant future.

"The United States is committed to working with Chad to address those shortcomings, to improve its oversight capacity and to lift visa restrictions," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

In addition to Hawaii, other progressive states and civil rights groups in the US, such as the Union for Civil Liberties in America (ACLU), have launched initiatives to combat Trump's veto in court.

The final word will be the Supreme Court, which must decide in the coming weeks whether to agree to examine the legality of the measures proclaimed by Trump in September.