JFS v. Trump: Challenging the refugee ban

This case challenged the October 2017 refugee ban ordered by President Trump.

Our clients

Our clients in this case were two resettlement agencies—Jewish Family Service of Seattle and Jewish Family Services of Silicon Valley—and several individual clients whose refugee cases were stalled because of  the October 2017 refugee ban ordered by President Trump. The ban suspended admission of refugees from certain predominantly Muslim countries and of refugees “following-to-join” their family members who are already in the United States.

Impact

Processing Re-opened. The court entered a preliminary order in December 2017 that reopened refugee processing for affected refugees with U.S. family members. Following discovery into the government’s compliance with that court order, the government settled the case in February 2020, agreeing to expedite processing of 315 refugees whose applications were still pending because of the October 2017 refugee ban and to count any resulting admissions under fiscal year 2017 numbers.

Case Status

IRAP is continuing to monitor the settlement agreement until processing under the agreement is complete.

The National Immigration Law Center (NILC), Perkins Coie, HIAS, and Lauren Aguiar, Mollie M. Kornreich, and Abigail Sheehan Davis are co-counsel in this litigation.