A federal appeals court on Thursday denied the Trump administration's request to block more foreigners from Muslim nations from entering the U.S. under its travel ban and removed restrictions on all refugee resettlement, which could open the door for thousands of blocked refugees to resume travel to the U.S.
The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could significantly lower the number of people blocked from travel to the U.S. under the travel ban, which currently halts nearly all refugee resettlement and travel by foreign nationals from six mostly Muslim countries unless they have close family connection in the U.S.
The panel of judges, Michael Hawkins, Ronald Gould and Richard Paez, did not decide whether the ban is legal. That question is left to the U.S. Supreme Court to take on when it hears arguments over the issue on Oct. 10.
Instead, the judges, who were appointed by Democratic presidents and had suspended the ban for a period this year, ruled on who falls under it.
President Donald Trump's ban, ordered in January and later modified, prevents travel to the U.S. by nationals from Somalia, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Iran for 90 days and stops all refugee resettlement for 120 days.
Federal appeals courts had blocked the ban until June, when the Supreme Court said it could take effect as long as it did not stop travel of anyone with a "bona fide" relationship to the U.S.
Aside from a handful of examples _ such as people who have university admission and employment offers in the U.S. and those residing in the U.S. who have mother-in-laws abroad _ the Supreme Court did not define what counts as a bona fide U.S. connection.
The Trump administration argued that family connections should include only people with a parent, spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, sibling, fiance or fiancee, or a parent-in-law in the U.S.
In July, a federal judge in Hawaii ruled that exceptions also had to be made for grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins and brothers- and sisters-in-law.
The Trump administration argued that a refugee's relationship to a resettlement agency by itself did not constitute a bona fide U.S. connection.
The Hawaii judge disagreed, clearing the way for travel by about 24,000 refugees who had been approved for U.S. resettlement but blocked by the travel ban.
The Trump administration appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which placed a hold on the judge's ruling on refugees until the 9th Circuit could consider the case.
