Syrian family’s asylum first blow to Trump’s revised travel ban

Educator and speaker Ghada Ghazal, who said she is a refugee of Syria and is seeking asylum in the United States, speaks to an interfaith group at the University Lutheran Church in Eau Claire, Wis., on Thursday. (AP)

WASHINGTON: A federal judge in Wisconsin dealt the first legal blow to President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban on Friday, barring enforcement of the policy to deny US entry to the wife and child of a Syrian refugee already granted asylum in the US.
The temporary restraining order, granted by US District Judge William Conley in Madison, applies only to the family of the Syrian refugee, who brought the case anonymously to protect the identities of his wife and daughter, still living in the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo.
But it represents the first of several challenges brought against Trump’s newly amended executive order, issued on March 6 and due to go into effect on March 16, to draw a court ruling in opposition to its enforcement.
Conley, chief judge of the federal court in Wisconsin’s western district and an appointee of former President Barack Obama, concluded the plaintiff “has presented some likelihood of success on the merits” of his case and that his family faces “significant risk of irreparable harm” if forced to remain in Syria.
The plaintiff, a Sunni Muslim, fled Syria to the US in 2014 to “escape near-certain death” at the hands of sectarian military forces fighting the Syrian regime in Aleppo, according to his lawsuit.
He subsequently obtained asylum for his wife and their only surviving child, a daughter, and their application had cleared the security vetting process and was headed for final processing when it was halted by Trump’s original travel ban on Jan. 27.
A federal judge in Seattle who issued the order temporarily halting nationwide implementation of initial travel ban said that because of procedural reasons he would not immediately rule on whether his restraining order applies to the new travel ban.