By Martha Bellisle / Associated Press
SEATTLE — Lawyers representing refugees who have legally settled in the U.S. are asking a federal judge to stop the Trump administration from keeping the families of the refugees from joining them in this country.
The ACLU, representing a Somali man living in Washington state, will argue in federal court Thursday that Trump’s indefinite prohibition on refugee families violates immigration law and the constitutional rights of the legal permanent residents.
The man, using the pseudonym Joseph Doe, fled Somali when he was 10. He spent 22 years in Kenyan refugee camps and after extensive screening, arrived in the U.S. in 2014. His wife and three children remain in Kenya. He filed petitions to bring them over, but the Trump ban has blocked that effort.
The ACLU says the decision to indefinitely halt the “follow-to-join” refugees inflicts irreparable injury and should be stopped.
The government says extra screening is needed for national security.
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