WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday ordering new travel restrictions for residents of six Muslim-majority countries as well as a temporary ban on refugees from around the world, retooling a directive issued five weeks ago that stoked chaos at airports and drew international condemnation and a rebuke in the federal courts.
The new ban, which takes effect March 16, halts travel for 90 days for residents of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The refugee suspension will last 120 days.
Iraq, whose citizens and nationals had been on the original list of banned travelers, was removed after officials there agreed to accept all Iraqi citizens being deported from the U.S., according to a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security who briefed reporters on the latest plan.
That was one of several changes to the order designed to insulate it from court challenges that blocked the first one. The new order also leaves more time for agencies to implement it in hopes of alleviating the confusion that accompanied the original order, which was issued only a week after Trump took office, with little consultation from top agency officials.
The new ban also clarifies that permanent residents and those holding valid visas will be allowed to enter the country or remain here. The order will give the State Department room for exceptions "on a case-by-case basis when in the national interest of the United States," according to Homeland Security.
Trump signed the order privately Monday morning with little fanfare, and the White House announced it only afterward. White House officials have indicated for days that a new iteration of the January order _ now stuck in legal limbo _ was imminent, though plans for when to release it have changed.
Trump had defended the hasty manner in which the original order was crafted as necessary for security, claiming bad actors would try to enter the country if there was any delay in stopping them. Yet the new order not only took weeks to release, but it also provides time between Monday's signing and next week's effective date.
Many in Trump's circle are also trying to change the subject, after several days of questions about the White House's ties to Russia and a weekend in which Trump made unsubstantiated charges that former President Barack Obama was tapping his phones during the presidential campaign.
"This is a very important week in this White House, where the president is going to continue to act on, along with the Congress, major pieces of his legislative and executive agenda," Kellyanne Conway, senior White House counselor, said on Fox News' "Fox & Friends," citing the travel ban order as one piece of Trump's plan.
The newest order will have sweeping effects, slowing the refugee program to a trickle and creating a new immigration standard for the six countries effected. But it falls short of the all-out ban on Muslims that Trump promised during the campaign.
Conway said the new order contained "six or seven major points" that clarify who would be affected by the order.
Unlike the earlier directive, the new instructions do not suspend Syrian refugee admissions indefinitely. Syrian refugees are included in the blanket suspension and are not singled out.
Trump had vowed to keep fighting for the original order, tweeting "see you in court" after a pair of legal defeats that suspended enforcement of the ban. He has said his new order would be "tailored" to meet court challenges, while adding that he still considered the courts' initial rejection a "bad decision."
His administration insisted that the new policy would not end the court battle. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, has called the second order part of a "dual-track system" that would ensure a higher level of border scrutiny while the court case on the first order is litigated.
But even as the White House maintained a public show that it was fighting, administration lawyers wrote in a filing to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last month that Trump would rescind the old order once he drafted a new one, effectively ending the court fight.
The new order, while not freezing all asylum seekers, would still repeat language in the old order that would slow their entry dramatically, by capping the program at 50,000 refugees for the year, compared with 110,000 allowed under policies of the Obama administration. The U.S. has already accepted 35,000 refugees this year, meaning only 15,000 more would be allowed.
In addition to blocking visas from the six listed countries, the new orders require agencies to "take immediate steps" to create "enhanced vetting and screening procedures" for all foreigners wanting to visit the U.S., the senior Homeland Security official said. "The president is very concerned about existing vulnerabilities," the official said.
After the new order is implemented next week, Homeland Security and State Department officials will examine every country in the world to ensure they are providing the U.S. enough information to vet their citizens appropriately, a Homeland Security official said. This review period could also be used as leverage to force countries to take back people that the U.S. would like to deport, the official said.
The initial ban ran afoul of the courts in part because it gave a preference to refugees who are religious minorities fleeing persecution in their home country, underscoring the argument some of Trump's allies made that he was trying to fulfill a campaign promise to initiate a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on."
There is also no waiver for religious minorities in the new temporary refugee ban.
Trump also said in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network on the day the first order was issued that it was intended to help Christian Syrians.
In addition to concerns about a religious test, the courts faulted the implementation of the original order, which was drafted in haste and signed on Jan. 27. It created mass confusion and protests at U.S. airports.
An estimated 60,000 visa-holders were blocked from entering the country, including some who were already on airplanes bound for the U.S. The administration later clarified the order to allow citizens from the seven affected countries who hold legal permanent residence in the U.S. to enter the country without a waiver.
Spicer said last month that the new travel order was reviewed by attorneys for the White House and the departments of Justice, State and Homeland Security to make sure that it "achieves the president's goal of protecting the country and does so in a way that recognizes the concerns that the court had until we prevail at a later time."
Even if the second order is more narrowly tailored, opponents have vowed to continue fighting it with protests and new legal challenges.
Yet Trump stands a good chance of prevailing in court, as presidents maintain broad latitude in matters of immigration and national security.
