Government to Appeal HIAS Challenge to Trump’s Muslim Ban Mar 17, 2017 GREENBELT, Md.—The Trump Administration filed paperwork today with the U.S. District Court in Maryland’s Southern Division indicating its intention to appeal the court’s decision, issued Thursday, ordering a preliminary injunction against the executive order. HIAS is a plaintiff in the case, along with IRAP, […]
An emergency hearing was held today in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, to hear a request by HIAS and others to block the revised executive order enacting President Trump’s refugee and Muslim ban. That ban is set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. on March 16, unless one of the three courts currently hearing challenges to the ban intervenes to restrain or enjoin the order.
“We are suing to save lives,” said HIAS Managing Attorney Liz Sweet. “If implemented, this revised Executive Order will create the same devastating consequences for tens of thousands of refugees who our government promised safety and freedom in the United States.”
On Wednesday night, HIAS filed an amicus or “friend of the court” brief in this case, in support of the plaintiffs. Our brief highlights some of the individuals who have been impacted by this order, to show the specific ways in which “the Executive Order is causing needless and unjustifiable irreparable harm to vulnerable refugees and their families.”
Legal challenges have suspended many parts of the Muslim ban, but our doors remain closed to some 60,000 vulnerable people seeking safety in this country. That hurts people like Eden, Sunam and Magan who have been separated from loved ones. The family reunions they had long hoped for now seem out of reach. We're challenging that in court.
HIAS Files Preliminary Injunction Challenging Reduction of Refugee Admissions to 50,000 Feb 23, 2017 BALTIMORE—Late last night, HIAS filed a motion asking for a preliminary injunction on President Trump’s reduction of the refugee admissions cap from 110,000 to 50,000 for Fiscal Year 2017. The reduction came as part of the president’s recent executive order on […]
We cannot remain silent as Muslim refugees are turned away just for being Muslim, just as we could not stand idly by when the U.S. turned away Jewish refugees fleeing Europe during the 1930s and 40s. The Torah requires us to intervene. To stop these things from being done by our government and in our name.
HIAS Files Suit to Challenge Legality of Refugee Ban Feb 07, 2017 BALTIMORE—Today, HIAS, the global Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees, initiated a legal challenge against President Trump’s executive order halting refugee resettlement. The order, signed on January 27, bans people from seven majority Muslim countries with an exception for religious minorities. As a religious […]
In more than 135 years serving refugees, HIAS has routinely represented asylum seekers in court against the U.S. government. Never before, however, has HIAS itself sued the U.S. government, let alone the President of the United States. Until today.
Late Sunday night, HIAS filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs in the case of Washington v. Trump, currently before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. “The Executive Order has fractured many refugee families whose safety and desire for unification were already fragile,” notes the brief.
