Vice President Mike Pence works to reassure Kurdish allies in surprise Iraq visit
Vice President Mike Pence worked to reassure the United States’ Kurdish allies in an unannounced trip to Iraq on Saturday, the highest-level American trip since President Donald Trump ordered a pullback of U.S. forces in Syria two months ago. Flying in a C-17 military cargo aircraft, Pence landed in Irbil, capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, to meet with Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani. The visit was meant to hearten the United States’ regional partners in the fight against the Islamic State group after the U.S. pulled troops from northern Syria, leaving America’s Kurdish allies there to face a bloody cross-border Turkish assault last month. Asked by reporters if the United States was facing a sense of betrayal from Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish allies over Trump’s actions in Syria, Pence said both groups, including Syrian Kurdish forces “who fought alongside us,” had no doubts about the U.S. commitment to them. “It’s unchanging,” Pence said. Earlier, Pence received a classified briefing at Iraq’s Al-Asad Air Base, from which U.S. forces are believed to have launched the operation in Syria last month that resulted in the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Pence also spoke by phone with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi. Underscoring Pence’s message that American military partnership with Syrian Kurdish forces is ongoing, the U.S.-led coalition said Saturday that its forces, along with hundreds of Syrian Kurdish commandos, had jointly carried out the largest operation against the Islamic State in eastern Syria since the U.S. pullback began in early October. Friday’s operation in southeastern Syria’s Deir el-Zour province captured dozens of Islamic State militants, cleared enemy compounds and seized weapons and explosives, the U.S.-led coalition said. Operations against Islamic State militants in Syria had been disrupted, but not totally halted, because of the U.S. troop pullback and Turkey’s invasion. Pence’s trip Saturday was his second to the region in five weeks. Trump deployed him on a whirlwind journey to Ankara, Turkey, last month to negotiate a cease-fire after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seized on the U.S. withdrawal to launch the offensive on U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in northern Syria. Trump’s move had sparked some of the most unified criticism of his administration to date, as lawmakers in both parties accused Trump of forsaking longtime Kurdish allies and inviting Russia and Iran to hold even greater sway in the volatile region. When the U.S. forces withdrew, Syria’s Kurds — seeking protection from their No. 1 enemy, Turkey — invited Syrian government and Russian forces into parts of northeastern Syria where they had not set foot in years. More are now deploying along large parts of the border region under a Russian-Turkish deal, including to at least one former U.S. garrison in northern Syria. The Ankara agreement required Syrian Kurds to vacate a swath of territory in Syria along the Turkish border in an arrangement that largely solidified Turkey’s position and aims. Pence hailed the cease-fire as the way to end the bloodshed caused by Turkey’s invasion. But Syrian-led Kurdish forces say the cease-fire is persistently violated. Fighting raged Saturday between them and Turkey-backed forces outside the Syrian town of Ein Issa, once home to U.S. bases and the Kurdish administration. A senior Syrian Kurdish official was critical Saturday of Washington’s lack of response to Turkey’s violations of the cease-fire. Limiting the U.S. partnership to military cooperation over a limited area with the Syrian Kurdish fighters, “while condoning the killing of civilians, is not a very honest relationship and cooperation,” the official, Ilham Ahmed, said. On Nov. 13, Trump feted Erdogan with a White House visit over the objection of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who argued Erdogan should be denied the honor of a West Wing visit in the aftermath of the invasion and because of his decision to purchase Russian-made surface-to-air missiles over the objection of NATO allies. In neighboring Syria, after declaring the near-complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, Trump decided that roughly 800 would stay to keep eastern Syria’s oil fields from falling back into the hands of the Islamic State. Trump also agreed to keep about 150 U.S. troops at a base in southern Syria as a check on Iranian influence in the region. While Trump has claimed that the U.S. was now “keeping” the oil in Syria, Pentagon officials indicated the U.S. presence is not intended to improve the oil infrastructure but to keep it in the hands of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. Pence, joined on the trip by his wife, Karen Pence, also greeted U.S. troops ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, serving turkey and accompaniments to hundreds of troops at the two locations. “While you come from the rest of us, you’re the best of us,” Pence told service members in a dusty hangar at Al-Asad. He said the Trump administration is working to secure another pay increase for the armed services and suggested the ongoing impeachment inquiry in Washington was slowing the way. “Partisan politics and endless investigations have slowed things down in D.C.,” Pence said. Pence’s visit to Iraq comes as the country has been plagued by widespread anti-corruption protests. At least 320 protesters have been killed and thousands have been wounded since the unrest began on Oct. 1. Pence spoke by phone with Abdul-Mahdi after the Iraqi leader declined an invitation to meet with Pence at the air base when security concerns prevented Pence from traveling into Baghdad. Pence encouraged the Iraqi government to show restraint with the protesters. By Zeke Miller Associated Press Associated Press writers Samya Kullab in Baghdad and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut contributed. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Mike Pompeo: US stands ‘with Israel’ in fight against Iran
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday gave a warm boost of support to Israel in its standoff against Iran, saying “the United States is with Israel in this fight.” Pompeo has been using the Middle East leg of his first trip abroad as America’s top diplomat to call for concerted international action to punish Iran for its missile programs. The tough line was welcomed in Israel, which considers Iran its greatest threat and has been leading calls for the international community to revise its 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. He arrived after visiting Saudi Arabia, another fierce rival of Iran. “We remain deeply concerned about Iran’s dangerous escalation of threats to Israel and the region and Iran’s ambition to dominate the Middle East remains,” Pompeo said after a nearly two-hour meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The United States is with Israel in this fight.” Israel has called for tough international action against Iran, citing its hostile rhetoric, support for anti-Israel militant groups and development of long-range missiles. It also has complained the 2015 nuclear deal does not do enough to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear-weapons capability, and expressed growing concerns about Iran’s involvement in the civil war in neighboring Syria. It says it will not allow Iran to establish a permanent military presence in Syria, fearing the Iranians will launch attacks. President Donald Trump is to decide by May 12 whether to remain in the nuclear deal. Pompeo repeated the Trump position that “if we can’t fix it, he is going to withdraw.” Netanyahu welcomed the tough U.S. line. “Iran must be stopped, its quest for a nuclear bomb must be stopped, its aggression must be stopped and we’re committed to stopping it together,” he said. Netanyahu also welcomed the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and the scheduled move of its embassy from Tel Aviv on May 14. Pompeo said the U.S. is “incredibly proud” of the embassy move. The Palestinians, who claim Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as their capital, have harshly criticized the U.S. move and all but cut off ties with the White House. Earlier in Saudi Arabia, Pompeo also took aim at Iran. “Iran destabilizes this entire region,” Pompeo said in brief remarks to journalists with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. He also urged the Saudis and their neighbors to resolve a festering dispute with Qatar that U.S. officials say Iran is exploiting to boost its influence in the region, including in Yemen and Syria. Pompeo on Sunday met with Saudi King Salman, whose country, along with Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, is embroiled in a row with Qatar that had hobbled Gulf Arab unity and frustrated the U.S. as it seeks to blunt growing Iranian assertiveness. “I think they would all agree that it’s in everyone’s best interests that the Gulf states all figure out how to be together,” Pompeo told reporters as he traveled to Israel. “We’ve got a common challenge in Iran I think they all recognize that. We’re hopeful that they will in their own way figure out their dispute between them.” The ex-CIA chief arrived in Riyadh a day earlier, shortly after Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen fired missiles at Saudi Arabia’s southern city of Jizan, killing one person and underscoring what U.S. officials said is a growing threat emanating from Iran. Senior U.S. officials traveling with Pompeo blamed Iran for smuggling the missiles into Yemen. They said the incident highlighted the importance of the Trump administration’s push to counter Iran in the region. Iran has also provided crucial support to Syrian President Bashar Assad. Al-Jubeir said the kingdom “supports the policy of the Trump administration against Iran and to improve the terms of the nuclear agreement with Iran.” Pompeo’s meetings in Saudi Arabia and Israel, to be followed by discussions in Jordan, come just weeks ahead of several key dates that could bring further volatility to the region. Trump has set a May 12 deadline to decide whether to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, something he appears likely to do despite heavy pressure to stay in from European and other parties. In London, British Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said that she discussed the deal with her French and German counterparts. It said they agreed that the deal should remain intact, even while addressing shortcomings. The countries “agreed that there were important elements that the deal does not cover, but which we need to address — including ballistic missiles, what happens when the deal expires, and Iran’s destabilizing regional activity,” the statement said. On May 14 comes the U.S. Embassy move, marking a significant shift in decades of American policy toward Israel and the Palestinians. The next day the Palestinians will mark the anniversary of what they term the “catastrophe,” when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948 war that surrounded Israel’s creation. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire during recent protests along border between Israel and Gaza. Those protests, spearheaded by the Islamic militant Hamas movement, are expected to peak on May 15. Also looming over the trip is uncertainty over Trump’s policy on Syria, which has shifted between a speedy all-out withdrawal of American forces and leaving a lasting footprint to deter Iran from completing a land bridge from Tehran to Beirut. Pompeo also is taking a leading role in Trump’s preparations for an expected summit in May or early June with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Pompeo, while en route to Israel, was asked whether a U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal would complicate negotiations “I don’t think Kim Jung Un is staring at the Iran deal and saying, ’Oh goodness, if they get out of that deal, I won’t talk to the Americans anymore. There are higher priorities, things he is more concerned about than whether the Americans stay” in the accord, Pompeo said. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Doug Jones supports Donald Trump actions on Syria
Alabama Senator Doug Jones released a statement via Facebook on Saturday, supporting President Donald Trump’s actions against Syria. “Bashar al-Assad‘s repeated use of chemical weapons on innocent civilians – so many of them children – was an atrocity and must be stopped,” said Jones. “I fully support the President’s actions last night to strategically target Assad’s capacity to use chemical weapons, and to do so with the assistance of our allies. It is my hope, as General Mattis stated last night, that Assad gets the message this time and that further action, which should be done with Congressional approval, will not be necessary.” “Finally, I am grateful for the capable service of the Alabama airmen who supported this mission in Syria last night. To them and their families, I share my continued appreciation for their sacrifices on behalf of all of us.” Jones released his statement after the United States, United Kingdom, and France used targeted airstrikes on several targets related to Syria’s chemical weapons program. The strikes came six days after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces used chemical weapons against civilians outside of Damascus. Activists and doctors Syria published images of men, women, and children with foam coming out of their mouths and noses; doctors saying that they were exposed to a nerve agent. The attack killed at least 42 adults and children. Trump tweeted on Saturday that the airstrike was “A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!” A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 14, 2018 While most Republican lawmakers applauded the President’s actions, Democratic lawmakers have varying opinions. Virginia-Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said Trump’s actions were “illegal” because he proceeded with approval from congress. House Minority Leader California-Democrat Nancy Pelosi said that although Assad’s chemical weapons attack was a “brutally inhumane war crime that demands a strong, smart and calculated response.” Trump needs to present a more comprehensive strategy on Syria to Congress and seek lawmakers’ approval in order to move forward.
Donald Trump threatens Syria strike, cancels summit travel
After threatening a military strike against Syria, President Donald Trump on Tuesday cancelled plans to travel to South America later this week, choosing to stay in the United States to manage the response to an apparent chemical weapons attack. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday that Trump will not attend the 8th Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru or travel to Bogota, Colombia as planned, remaining in the United States to “oversee the American response to Syria and to monitor developments around the world.” The decision marks the first time an American president has not attended the summit. Vice President Mike Pence will travel in Trump’s place. Trump on Monday promised a decision on Syria within hours, declaring that Russia or any other nation found to share responsibility for Saturday’s apparent chemical weapons attack on civilians will “pay a price.” The White House sharply rejected any suggestion that Trump’s own words about pulling U.S. troops out of Syria had opened the door for the attack, which killed more than 40 people, including children. Trump, asked whether Russian President Vladimir Putin bore any responsibility, responded, “He may, yeah, he may. And if he does it’s going to be very tough, very tough.” He added, “Everybody’s gonna pay a price. He will. Everybody will.” Amid the tough talk from the White House, the U.S. military appeared to be in position to carry out any attack order. A Navy destroyer, the USS Donald Cook, was underway in the eastern Mediterranean after completing a port call in Cyprus. The guided missile destroyer is armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, the weapon of choice in a U.S. attack one year ago on an airfield in Syria following an alleged sarin gas attack on civilians. The Russian military, which has a presence in Syria as a key Assad ally, said its officers had visited the weekend site in a suburb of Damascus, the Syrian capital, and found no evidence to back up reports of poison gas being used. Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, accused Washington of deliberately stoking international tensions by threatening Russia in a tone “beyond the threshold of what is acceptable, even during the Cold War.” Trump said there was little question that Syria was responsible for the apparent weekend attack, although the government of President Bashar Assad denied it. “To me there’s not much of a doubt, but the generals will figure it out,” Trump said. He promised a decision on a possible military response within 24 to 48 hours, “probably by the end of today.” Emphatic in his condemnation of the apparent gas attack, Trump noted graphic pictures of the dead and sickened, calling the assault “heinous,” ″atrocious,” ″horrible” and “barbaric.” Fielding questions at the White House, Trump press secretary Sarah Sanders said it would be “outrageous” to say that Trump’s recent announcement that he intends to remove all U.S. forces from Syria in the coming months had emboldened Assad. “I think that it is outrageous to say that the president of the United States green-lit something as atrocious as the actions that have taken place over the last several days,” she said. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, in separate remarks at the Pentagon, also suggested Moscow bore some blame. He criticized Russia for what he suggested was its failure to ensure the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal under terms of a 2013 agreement. Trump was to meet late in the day with senior national security aides, and no action was “off the table,” the president said. Monday was the first day on the job for his new national security adviser, John Bolton, who has previously advocated military action against Syria. Trump said, “If it’s Russia, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them together, we’ll figure it out.” The United States, meanwhile, urged the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution that would condemn the continuing use of chemical weapons in Syria “in the strongest terms” and establish a new body to determine responsibility for chemical attacks. The draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, was circulated ahead of an emergency Security Council meeting. An American official said the U.S. was discussing with allies whether they would participate in a retaliatory strike. If Trump decides to proceed quickly, the most likely partner would be France rather than Britain, because of concerns about obtaining permission from Parliament, said the official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the planning publicly and requested anonymity. As U.S. officials consider whether and how to respond, they are looking at what type of chemical agent might have been used. When Trump ordered airstrikes last year after a chemical weapons attack, it was a response to the use of sarin gas, which is banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention that Syria has signed. An attack with chlorine, which can be used as a weapon but is not outright banned by the treaty, could raise precedent issues, as there have been numerous recent allegations of chlorine attacks in Syria that have drawn no response from the Trump administration. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump’s talk of a Syria pullout nothing new
President Donald Trump’s unscripted remark this week about pulling out of Syria “very soon,” while at odds with his own policy, was not a one-off: For weeks, top advisers have been fretting about an overly hasty withdrawal as the president has increasingly told them privately he wants out, U.S. officials said. Only two months ago, Trump’s aides thought they’d persuaded him that the U.S. needed to keep its presence in Syria open-ended — not only because the Islamic State group has yet to be entirely defeated, but also because the resulting power vacuum could be filled by other extremist groups or by Iran. Trump signed off on major speech in January in which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson laid out the new strategy and declared “it is vital for the United States to remain engaged in Syria.” But by mid-February, Trump was telling his top aides in meetings that as soon as victory can be declared against IS, he wanted American troops out of Syria, said the officials. Alarm bells went off at the State Department and the Pentagon, where officials have been planning for a gradual, methodical shift from a military-led operation to a diplomatic mission to start rebuilding basic infrastructure like roads and sewers in the war-wracked country. In one sign that Trump is serious about reversing course and withdrawing from Syria, the White House this week put on hold some $200 million in US funding for stabilization projects in Syria, officials said. The money, to have been spent by the State Department for infrastructure projects like power, water and roads, had been announced by outgoing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at an aid conference last month in Kuwait. The officials said the hold, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is not necessarily permanent and will be discussed at senior-level inter-agency meetings next week. The officials weren’t authorized to comment publicly and demanded anonymity. The State Department said it continually reviews appropriate assistance levels and how best they might be utilized. And the agency said it continues to work with the international community, members of the Coalition, and our partners on the ground to provide much needed stabilization support to vulnerable areas in Syria. “The United States is working everyday on the ground and with the international community to help stabilize those areas liberated from ISIS and identify ways to move forward with reconstruction once there has been a peaceful political transition away from (Syrian President Bashar) Assad,” according to a statement from the State Department. Trump’s first public suggestion he was itching to pull out came in a news conference with visiting Australian Prime Minister Alastair Campbell on Feb. 23, when Trump said the U.S. was in Syria to “get rid of ISIS and go home.” On Thursday, in a domestic policy speech in Ohio, Trump went further. “We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon — very soon, we’re coming out,” Trump said. The public declaration caught U.S. national security agencies off-guard and unsure whether Trump was formally announcing a new, unexpected change in policy. Inundated by inquiries from journalists and foreign officials, the Pentagon and State Department reached out to the White House’s National Security Council for clarification. The White House’s ambiguous response, officials said: Trump’s words speak for themselves. “The mission of the Department of Defense to defeat ISIS has not changed,” said Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman. Still, without a clear directive from the president, planning has not started for a withdrawal from Syria, officials said, and Trump has not advocated a specific timetable. For Trump, who campaigned on an “America First” mantra, Syria is just the latest foreign arena where his impulse has been to limit the U.S. role. Like with NATO and the United Nations, Trump has called for other governments to step up and share more of the burden so that Washington doesn’t foot the bill. His administration has been crisscrossing the globe seeking financial commitments from other countries to fund reconstruction in both Syria and Iraq, but with only limited success. Yet it’s unclear how Trump’s impulse to pull out could be affected by recent staff shake-ups on his national security team. Tillerson and former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, both advocates for keeping a U.S. presence in Syria, were recently fired, creating questions about the longevity of the plan Tillerson announced in his Stanford University speech in January. But Trump also replaced McMaster with John Bolton, a vocal advocate for U.S. intervention and aggressive use of the military overseas. The abrupt change in the president’s thinking has drawn concern both inside and outside the United States. Other nations that make up the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS fear that Trump’s impulse to pull out hastily would allow the notoriously resourceful IS militants to regroup, several European diplomats said. That concern has been heightened by the fact that U.S.-backed ground operations against remaining IS militants in Syria were put on hold earlier this month. The ground operations had to be paused because Kurdish fighters who had been spearheading the campaign against IS shifted to a separate fight with Turkish forces, who began combat operations in the town of Afrin against Kurds who are considered by Ankara to be terrorists that threaten Turkey’s security. “This is a serious and growing concern,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said this month. Beyond just defeating IS, there are other strategic U.S. objectives that could be jeopardized by a hasty withdrawal, officials said, chiefly those related to Russia and Iran. Israel, America’s closest Mideast ally, and other regional nations like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are deeply concerned about the influence of Iran and its allies, including the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, inside Syria. The U.S. military presence in Syria has been seen as a buffer against unchecked Iranian activity, and especially against Tehran’s desire to establish a contiguous land route from Iran to the Mediterranean coast in
Supreme Court permits full enforcement of Donald Trump travel ban
The US Supreme Court on Monday issued an order permitting full enforcement of President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban to go into effect while legal challenges continue to be argued in lower courts. While not a final ruling, the court is allowing the Trump administration enforce a ban on travel to the U.S. by residents of six mostly Muslim countries — Syria, Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. The only dissent from the court came from Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor who would have left the lower court order in place had they not had the minority opinion on the court. White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley responded to the court’s decision and called the ban “lawful and essential to protecting our homeland.” “We look forward to presenting a fuller defense of the proclamation as the pending cases work their way through the courts,” Gidley added. What happens next? Federal appeals courts in San Francisco, California, and Richmond, Virginia, will hear arguments this week on whether the Trump’s third executive order of the travel ban policy is lawful. The Supreme Court noted it expects those lower courts to reach decisions “with appropriate dispatch.” Meaning the case will eventually end up back in the Supreme Court, likely by the end of June.
Donald Trump replaces 90-day ban with new travel restrictions
President Donald Trump has signed a proclamation imposing strict new restrictions on travelers from a handful of countries, including five that were covered by his expiring travel ban. Administration officials say the new measures are required to keep the nation safe. The indefinite restrictions apply to citizens of Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and North Korea. As part of the presidential proclamation signed Sunday, the U.S. will also bar the entry of certain Venezuelan government officials and their immediate families. The changes will take effect October 18. The announcement came the same day that Trump’s temporary ban on visitors from six Muslim-majority countries was set to expire, 90 days after it went into effect. That ban had barred citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen who lacked a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States” from entering the U.S. Only one of those countries, Sudan, will no longer be subject to travel restrictions. “Making America Safe is my number one priority. We will not admit those into our country we cannot safely vet,” Trump tweeted late Sunday after the new policy was announced. Unlike the first iteration of Trump’s travel ban, which sparked chaos at airports across the country and a flurry of legal challenges after being hastily written with little input outside the White House, officials stressed they had been working for months on the new rules, in collaboration with various agencies and in conversation with foreign governments. To limit confusion, valid visas would not be revoked as a result of the proclamation. The order also permits, but does not guarantee, case-by-case waivers for citizens of the affected countries. The restrictions are targeted at countries that the Department of Homeland Security says fail to share sufficient information with the U.S. or haven’t taken necessary security precautions. DHS has spent recent months working to develop a new security baseline, which includes factors such as whether countries issue electronic passports with biometric information, report lost or stolen passports to INTERPOL, an international law enforcement body, and share information about travelers’ terror-related and criminal histories. Citizens of countries that don’t meet the standard will face restrictions until they make changes to bring them into compliance. The new rules include the suspension of all immigrant visas for nationals of Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Yemen and Somalia, and the suspension of non-immigrant visas, such as for business and tourism, to nationals of Chad, Libya, North Korea, Syria and Yemen. Citizens of Iran will not be eligible for tourism and business visas, but remain eligible for student and cultural exchange visas if they undergo additional scrutiny. Such additional scrutiny will also be required for Somali citizens applying for all non-immigrant visas. Critics have accused Trump of overstepping his legal authority and violating the U.S. Constitution’s protections against religious bias each time he has ordered new travel restrictions. And the inclusion of Venezuela and North Korea appeared to be an attempt to block challenges from advocacy groups and others who have called the restrictions a ban on Muslims. Trump during his campaign called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” The U.S. had already imposed wide-ranging sanctions on certain high-ranking Venezuelan government officials to protest the government’s attempts to consolidate power. “The fact that Trump has added North Korea — with few visitors to the U.S. — and a few government officials from Venezuela doesn’t obfuscate the real fact that the administration’s order is still a Muslim ban,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has been challenging the ban in court. “President Trump’s original sin of targeting Muslims cannot be cured by throwing other countries onto his enemies list.” But administration officials argue the measure is necessary to keep Americans safe. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Alabama joins 15-state coalition in amicus brief supporting Donald Trump’s travel ban
A team of state attorneys general submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday in support of the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict travel to the United States by providing a 90-day delay of travelers entering America from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen due to national security concerns regarding those countries. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall joined 15 other states in the brief the Court to uphold the travel ban to protect American citizens from terrorism. “The President is rightfully exercising his legal authority to restrict the entry of those who may endanger the safety and security of Americans,” said Marshall. “The restricted countries have a strong record of violent acts and terrorism, and it is vital and appropriate that the President’s provisions stand to properly vet travelers from these areas for the protection of our citizens.” The brief relates to an executive order Trump signed March 6, a revision to an earlier travel ban he signed January 27, a week into his presidency. Federal judges subsequently prevented both versions from being fully implemented, dealing a major legal setback to the new administration’s immigration policy. The Trump administration appealed the injunctions to the Supreme Court, which allowed a limited version of the ban to take effect and will hear full arguments in October. Thursday’s amicus brief was filed by the State of Texas and joined by Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia, along with Gov. Phil Bryant of Mississippi.
Travel ban was on, then off. Now it’s back, but different
President Donald Trump‘s first, temporary ban on travelers from seven majority-Muslim nations was short-lived, but it sparked confusion, panic and anger that lasted through months of court rulings. The Supreme Court is now taking up the case in the fall. In the meantime, the government can enforce parts of a second version of Trump’s order. So what’s new this time? — BANNED FOREIGNERS Old order: Three-month ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, including those who had valid visas but were outside the United States when the ban was signed. Supreme Court version: Iraq has been dropped from the ban. For 90 days, the government can bar new visa applicants from Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Iran and Libya who can’t prove they have a “bona fide relationship” with close relatives or a business in the United States. The State Department says valid relationships include a parent, spouse, fiancé, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, sibling already in the United States. Journalists, students, workers or lecturers who have valid, formal invitations or employment contracts in the U.S. will also be welcome. Refugees hoping to come to the United States who aren’t already approved for travel must now also prove one of these relationships. Otherwise, they’ll be barred for 120 days. — SYRIANS Old order: Syrian visitors, immigrants and refugees were barred from the United States indefinitely. Supreme Court version: Syrians will be treated in the same manner as citizens of the other five designated countries. — REFUGEES Old order: Four-month halt to refugees entering the United States. Supreme Court version: The refugee ban will be in place for 120 days. But refugees already vetted and approved for travel through July 6 will be allowed to move to the United States. The “bona fide relationship” standard applies after a cap of 50,000 refugees that Trump set for the fiscal year is met. That is likely to happen soon. The new rules will likely affect refugees in the next fiscal year, which starts in October. The Supreme Court will hold a hearing on the ban that same month. — TIMING Old order: The Jan. 27 order was immediately put into place, causing chaos and panic at airports as the Homeland Security Department scrambled to figure out who was covered by the order and how it was to be implemented. Supreme Court version: It went into effect at roughly 8 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, more than 72 hours after the Supreme Court issued its opinion. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Donald Trump travel ban partly reinstated; fall court arguments set
The Supreme Court is letting a limited version of President Donald Trump’s ban on travel from six mostly Muslim countries take effect, a victory for Trump in the biggest legal controversy of his young presidency. The justices will hear full arguments in October in the case that has stirred heated emotions across the nation. In the meantime, the court said Monday that Trump’s ban on visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen can be enforced if those visitors lack a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” Trump said last week that the ban would take effect 72 hours after being cleared by courts. The administration has said the 90-day ban was needed on national security grounds to allow an internal review of screening procedures for visa applicants from the six countries. Opponents say the ban is unlawful, based on visitors’ Muslim religion. The administration review should be complete before Oct. 2, the first day the justices could hear arguments in their new term. A 120-ban on refugees also is being allowed to take effect on a limited basis. Three of the court’s conservative justices said they would have let the complete bans take effect. Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, said the government has shown it is likely to succeed on the merits of the case, and that it will suffer irreparable harm with any interference. Thomas said the government’s interest in preserving national security outweighs any hardship to people denied entry into the country. Some immigration lawyers said the limited nature of the ban and the silence of the court’s liberals on the issue Monday suggested that the court had not handed Trump much of a victory. The White House did not immediately comment. The court’s opinion explained the kinds of relationships people from the six countries must demonstrate to obtain a U.S. visa. “For individuals, a close familial relationship is required,” the court said. For people who want to come to the United States to work or study, “the relationship must be formal, documented and formed in the ordinary course, not for the purpose of evading” the travel ban. The opinion faulted the two federal appeals courts that had blocked the travel policy for going too far to limit Trump’s authority over immigration. The president announced the travel ban a week after he took office in January and revised it in March after setbacks in court. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, said the ban was “rooted in religious animus” toward Muslims and pointed to Trump’s campaign promise to impose a ban on Muslims entering the country as well as tweets and remarks he has made since becoming president. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the travel policy does not comply with federal immigration law, including a prohibition on nationality-based discrimination. That court also put a hold on separate aspects of the policy that would keep all refugees out of the United States for 120 days and cut by more than half, from 110,000 to 50,000, the cap on refugees in the current government spending year that ends September 30. Trump’s first executive order on travel applied to travelers from Iraq and well as the six countries, and took effect immediately, causing chaos and panic at airports over the last weekend in January as the Homeland Security Department scrambled to figure out whom the order covered and how it was to be implemented. A federal judge blocked it eight days later, an order that was upheld by a 9th circuit panel. Rather than pursue an appeal, the administration said it would revise the policy. In March, Trump issued the narrower order. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Court likely to question if Donald Trump’s travel ban discriminates
For the second time in a week, government lawyers will try to persuade a federal appeals court to reinstate President Donald Trump‘s revised travel ban – and once again, they can expect plenty of questions Monday about whether it was designed to discriminate against Muslims. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled arguments in Seattle over Hawaii’s lawsuit challenging the travel ban, which would suspend the nation’s refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Last week, judges on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments over whether to affirm a Maryland judge’s decision putting the ban on ice. They peppered Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall with questions about whether they could consider Trump’s campaign statements calling for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., with one judge asking if there was anything other than “willful blindness” that would prevent them from doing so. Monday’s arguments mark the second time Trump’s efforts to restrict immigration from certain Muslim-majority nations have reached the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit. After Trump issued his initial travel ban on a Friday in late January, bringing chaos and protests to airports around the country, a Seattle judge blocked its enforcement nationwide – a decision that was unanimously upheld by a three-judge 9th Circuit panel. The president then rewrote his executive order, rather than appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and in March, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu blocked the new version from taking effect, citing what he called “significant and unrebutted evidence of religious animus” in Trump’s campaign statements. “Again, in this court, the President claims a nearly limitless power to make immigration policy that is all but immune from judicial review,” Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin wrote to the 9th Circuit. “Again, he must be checked.” The administration’s lawyers are seeking to persuade the judges that the lower court’s decision is “fundamentally wrong,” and that the president’s order falls squarely within his duty to secure the nation’s borders. The order as written is silent on religion, and neither Hawaii nor its co-plaintiff, the imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, has standing to sue, they say – arguments that were rejected in the lower court. The travel ban cases are expected to reach the Supreme Court, but that would likely be cemented if the 4th and 9th Circuits reach differing conclusions about its legality. Because of how the courts chose to proceed, a full slate of 13 judges heard the 4th Circuit arguments last week, while just three, all appointees of President Bill Clinton, will sit in Seattle. For that reason – with the possibility for myriad concurring or dissenting opinions – it could take the 4th Circuit longer to rule, noted Carl Tobias, a law professor at University of Richmond law school in Virginia. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin look to work together on Syria
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled improving prospects for cooperation in Syria in what the White House called a “very good” phone discussion that included a focus on setting up safe zones in the war-torn nation. The Kremlin said the leaders also agreed in Tuesday’s call to try to set up their first in-person meeting in July, on the sidelines of an international summit in Germany. The White House later confirmed that information. The call marked the first time Trump and Putin have spoken since the U.S. launched missiles against an air base in Syria, an attack that outraged Russia, one of the Syrian government’s strongest backers. The U.S. military action sparked new tensions between Washington and Moscow, with top U.S. officials sharply condemning Putin’s continued support for embattled Syrian leader Bashar Assad. But the leaders appeared to again be edging toward closer cooperation following the exchange. The Kremlin said Trump and Putin agreed to bolster diplomatic efforts to resolve the Syrian civil war, which has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions more displaced. The White House announced it would send a top State Department official to Russian-led talks on Syria that begin Wednesday in Kazakhstan. “President Trump and President Putin agreed that the suffering in Syria has gone on for far too long and that all parties must do all they can to end the violence,” the White House said. “The conversation was a very good one, and included the discussion of safe, or de-escalation, zones to achieve lasting peace for humanitarian and many other reasons.” The Kremlin characterized the call as “business-like” and “constructive.” It made no mention of safe zones. Since taking office, Trump has been raising the prospect of safe zones in Syria with world leaders. The zones would be aimed at protecting civilians — and dissuading Syrian refugees from trying to come to the United States, one of Trump’s goals. But military leaders have warned that significant American resources would be required to safeguard the regions. Whether the U.S. and Russia can find a way forward is deeply uncertain. The U.S. has long sought Moscow’s help in Syria, where the civil war has created a vacuum for the Islamic State and other extremist groups. But Russia’s ongoing support for Assad has been a persistent roadblock. As a candidate, Trump argued that the U.S. focus in Syria should be on terrorism, not seeking Assad’s removal from power. And he vowed to work with any country — particularly Russia — that wanted to play a role in that effort. But last month, Trump was moved by the gruesome images of children killed in a chemical weapons attack that the U.S. has pinned on the Assad government. The U.S. launched 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian air base, marking the first time America has directly targeted the Syrian government since the conflict there began. Some of Trump’s top advisers, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, leveled blistering criticism on Russia and Putin following the chemical weapons attack. Yet Trump has continued to hold out the prospect of a stronger relationship with Russia, which was a cornerstone of his foreign policy platform as a presidential candidate. He took to Twitter days after the Syria strikes to say that “things will work out fine” between the U.S. and Russia and “everyone will come to their senses.” The shifts in the Trump administration’s posture came amid a steady swirl of controversy surrounding possible ties between the president’s associates and Russia during last year’s election. The FBI and congressional committees are investigating whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia as it meddled in the election. Hillary Clinton, Trump’s vanquished Democratic opponent, said during a speaking appearance Tuesday that she was “on the way to winning” the election until “intervening events” in the campaign’s final days, including the WikiLeaks’ release of hacked emails from one of her top advisers. U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia was behind the hacking. Putin, who met earlier Tuesday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, denied that Moscow ever interferes in other countries’ elections. He said accusations of Russian meddling aimed at helping Trump in his race against Democrat Hillary Clinton were “simply rumors” being used as part of a political fight in Washington. Trump has vigorously denied any nefarious ties to Moscow, calling the Russian investigations a “hoax.” Tuesday’s call marked the third time Trump and Putin are known to have talked since the U.S. president took office in January. Both the White House and the Kremlin said the leaders also discussed North Korea’s nuclear provocations. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
