As per the government’s interpretation of “bona fide relationship,” grandparents and other kin like aunts and uncles cannot be exempt from the travel ban.
Trump administration bans grandparents coming from the six banned predominantly Muslim countries after the Supreme Court allowed partial execution of the ban last Monday, Reuters reported.
Last week on Monday, the US Supreme Court said in its ruling that the travel ban, which was introduced by Trump on March 6, could be implemented with a condition that it cannot apply to anyone with “bona fide relationship” with a US person or entity. The president’s executive order that banned people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days was otherwise completely stalled by the lower courts.
The government, however, interpreted the jargon saying that the “bona fide relationship” only refers to close family members, which are: parents, spouses, siblings, and children. Apart from these relations, other kin, for instance, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins from the above mentioned six countries, would still be banned.
Reportedly, the justice department’s lawyers argued in court papers that the government’s definition, “hews closely to the categorical determinations articulated by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act.”
The government’s response came after the State of Hawaii went to the US District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu, last week, to argue that the government’s definition of “bona fide relationship” was too narrow. Watson had ruled to block the travel ban earlier.
The ban affects the influx of refugees, too. The refugee organizations had therefore argued that because the process to resettle refugees takes a lot of time and requires coordination from the government, it should come under the ambit of “bona fide” relationship with a US entity. According to the Supreme Court order, refugees that come under this definition should be exempt from the three-month ban on the refugees as included in the travel ban.
However, the government has pointed out that the workers who have offers from the US companies and the international studies are different from the refugees receiving aid from US resettlement agencies.