GAME ON

Federal Judge Stays Refugee Ban Deportations

For those in transit or currently detained.

A federal judge in Brooklyn issued a stay on Saturday night "on deportations for people who have arrived with valid visas from seven-majority Muslim nations," according to The Guardian. It's an almost-instant setback for President Trump's executive order banning individuals from entering the U.S. from a set of Muslim-majority countries. The ruling was in response to a habeas corpus petition from the ACLU on behalf of Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi who were stopped at JFK Airport in New York City and held by Customs and Border Patrol. Darweesh had been an interpreter in Iraq for the U.S. military and Alshawi had a visa to meet his wife and son who are permanent residents of the U.S. and had also served. During the hearing, the U.S. government seemed ill prepared, and at one point was unable to inform the judge how many people the government was holding.