President Donald Trump signed a revised version of his executive order on immigration Monday. The order comes about a month after a federal appeals court temporarily suspended Trump's initial travel ban.
One major difference between the two orders is the list of countries whose citizens will be temporarily barred from immigrating to the United States, with Iraq excluded from the revised list. This has left immigrants from six predominantly Muslim countries — Iran, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan — still banned for 90 days.
"In addition, the nation’s refugee program will be suspended for 120 days, and it will not accept more than 50,000 refugees in a year, down from the 110,000 cap set by the Obama administration," The Washington Post reported.
It also attempts to mitigate problems that surfaced during the initial rollout, including the detainment of legal permanent residents at airports around the country, by excluding green card holders and those with active visas from the ban. Instead, this executive order will only apply to new visa applicants from the six affected countries.
"If you have travel docs, if you actually have a visa, if you are a legal permanent resident, you are not covered under this particular executive action," White House Adviser Kellyanne Conway said on "Fox and Friends" Monday. "Also, Iraq is no longer on the list based on their enhanced screening and reporting measures."
There will also be a "short phase-in period to make sure that people on the other end don't get on airplanes," as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly noted in February.
Civil rights organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have vowed to challenge the constitutionality of the revised travel ban if the changes were unsatisfactory. When White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller told Fox News Feb. 21 that the order will have the "same basic policy outcome," the ACLU's official Twitter account responded, "So then we will have the same basic response."
So then we will have the same basic response. https://t.co/tMTAWYDRWm
— ACLU National (@ACLU) February 22, 2017
That tweet refers to a lawsuit the ACLU filed against the order on Jan. 29, when the organization successfully sued over visa holders who were denied entry to the U.S. on the day of the order's rollout. A subsequent motion for a temporary restraining order against the action — brought against the Trump administration by Washington's attorney general — was also successful.
The administration appealed the district court's ruling in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but a three-judge panel ultimately upheld the temporary restraining order, arguing that the White House was unlikely to prevail in a separate lawsuit considering the legal merits of the order.
Rather than appeal the 9th Circuit's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, however, Trump ordered a rewrite. It's yet to be seen whether the revised order will experience the same fate or pass muster in the court system.