Donald Trump to ‘sign new refugee and immigration travel order on Wednesday’

The President has delayed the new order to make sure it is ‘flawless’

Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith
Monday 27 February 2017 09:42 GMT
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Donald Trump is expected to sign a new travel ban on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.

A senior administration official told the news agency of the plans to roll out the fresh refugee and immigration executive order this week, but spoke on condition of anonymity as they are not authorised to discuss the plans publicly.

The fresh travel ban was expected to be signed last week, but White House spokesman Sean Spicer claimed the President had delayed the order “to make sure that we execute this, it’s done in a manner that’s flawless”.

Before it was blocked by federal judges, the President’s first executive order suspended the US’s refugee programme for 120 days and banned Syrian refugees indefinitely, and temporarily halted the entry of people from seven Muslim majority countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.

The ban caused protests at airports across America as people were detained by homeland security after arriving in the country, while others were stopped from boarding flights to the US.

MPs held an emergency debate on the travel ban and people took to the streets in the UK in protest of it, with thousands of people attending a rally outside Downing Street.

The new executive order has been termed a “more streamline version” of the travel ban by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.

White House advisor Stephen Miller told Fox News last week the new executive order will have “minor technical differences” from its predecessor and that it will “have the same basic policy outcome”. He said it will be “responsive to the judicial ruling” that derailed the original travel order set out by the President.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

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