After an emergency hearing in Brooklyn tonight, a federal judge put a stay on Trump's executive order banning people from 7 primarily Muslim countries from entering the country.
Chris Geidner reports for Buzzfeed News:
US District Judge Ann Donnelly issued the stay after holding the first hearing on a challenge to the order. Further proceedings in the case challenging the constitutionality of Trump’s order are set for February.
The lawsuit was brought early Saturday on behalf of Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, two men detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport for several hours after their arrival at the airport in the wake of Trump’s signing of the ban.
In addition to the two men, however, the group of lawyers backing the men also filed a motion to turn the lawsuit into a class action, which could result in protection for all of those who would be covered by the class.
Later, they sought immediate action, filing a request that the court issue a stay of removal — an order preventing deportation — not only for the two men, but for the entire proposed class.
Lawyers have rushed to airports all over the country to file writs of habeas corpus for detained people from those countries, all of whom held valid visas.
In the judge's order, she found that "there is imminent danger that, absent the stay of removal, there will be substantial and irreparable injury to refugees, visa-holders, and other individuals from nations subject to the January 27, 2017 Executive Order."
The judge then ordered that the government was restrained from "removing individuals with refugee applications approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as part of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, holders of valid immigrant and non-immigrant visas, and other individuals from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen legally authorized to enter the United States."
This is just the first step, of course. It doesn't invalidate the order, but it does stop the enforcement of it for the time being. There are some lawyers arguing that it's limited to those en route to the country only (detained in airports, etc), but I'm unclear on their reasoning for that and will update with any more information as I find it.
There will be more arguments on the constitutionality of the order as a whole, but for people who were barred from traveling and detained at airports, it's certainly a relief.
Update: A second stay has been granted by a different judge in Virginia staying a ban on those who hold green cards
