WASHINGTON: A US federal appeals court on Thursday dealt a fresh setback to President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban, upholding a lower court’s decision to block the measure targeting travelers from six Muslim majority countries. A revised executive order announced in March, meant to address the issues raised by the federal judges, deleted Iraq from the list and removed an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees. Given the case’s high-profile nature, the full appeals court in Richmond heard the arguments — bypassing the usual initial three-judge panel — for the first time in a quarter-century. A federal court in Hawaii has issued a broader injunction that halted both the travel ban and the suspension of the US refugee admissions program. The White House is fighting that ruling in the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, which heard the case on May 15.

Source: Manila Times May 25, 2017 22:07 UTC