Homeland security may have violated court order during travel ban – report

As a report by homeland security’s inspector general into the first ban was made public, the supreme court said it would consider a challenge to Trump’s third ban

Oliver Laughland
Fri 19 Jan 2018 20.01 GMT Last modified on Fri 19 Jan 2018 20.42 GMT

The Department of Homeland Security was almost entirely unprepared for implementing Donald Trump’s January 2017 travel ban, and appears to have violated federal court rulings during the order’s enforcement, a stinging government review has found.

A report by the department’s inspector general revealed that homeland security – the agency largely responsible for implementing the ban – was given no opportunity to contribute to the draft of Trump’s executive order. According to the report, homeland security officials were “caught by surprise” when the president signed it on 27 January, ordering its immediate enforcement.

The ban, which targeted refugees and visa holders from several Muslim majority countries, led to chaos at airports around the US and was later blocked by a series of court rulings which found grounds for violations of the constitution.

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The inspector general’s report into the first ban found that: “Answers to critical questions necessary for implementation were undefined when the EO [Executive Order] issued. No policies, procedures and guidance to the field were developed. This meant that Homeland Security and other other government departments were forced to “improvise policies and procedures in real time”.

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