A US appeals court on Friday refused to reinstate Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban on nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries, in a major political setback to the President, who vowed to legally challenge the unanimous ruling, saying “See you in court”. However, Trump on Saturday said he is considering signing a “brand new” executive order by next week to temporarily bar citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations from entering America. “We hold that the government has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal, nor has it shown that failure to enter a stay would cause irreparable injury, and we therefore deny its emergency motion for a stay,” the judges had said in the unanimous order.
“The government has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the US,” the three-judge bench of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said. Trump had signed an executive order last month suspending the arrival of all refugees for at least 120 days, Syrian refugees indefinitely, and barring citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, fulfilling one of his central campaign promises.
Green card dreams turn sour
Two top US senators have proposed a legislation to cut the number of legal immigrants to the US by half within a decade, a move that could adversely hit those aspiring to get a green card or permanent residency in the US. The Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment, or RAISE Act, introduced by Republican senator Tom Cotton and his Democratic colleague David Perdue, would alter the US immigration system to significantly reduce the number of foreigners admitted to the country without a skills-based visa.
The Bill proposed to reduce the number of green card or legal permanent residency issued every year from currently about a million to half a million. The passage of the Bill will have a major impact on hundreds and thousands of Indian Americans who are currently painfully waiting to get their green cards.
