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A federal judge said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s policy facilitating visas for participants in the ongoing World Cup soccer tournament undercuts the administration’s claims that other immigration benefits — for nationals from some of those same countries — need to be halted for national security reasons.
Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge John McConnell issued a ruling last month lifting a hold the administration put on immigration processing for citizens of 39 countries.
During a hearing Wednesday on the Justice Department’s request to pause McConnell’s ruling, the judge said the effort to expedite visas for World Cup players and others connected to the tournament backed his view that there was no genuine national security motivation behind the moratorium, imposed last year after an Afghan immigrant allegedly shot two National Guard members near the White House.
“We let players and coaches from some of those 39 countries in, and their family members — disregarded the ban. We’ve let doctors in,” said McConnell. “If the categorical ban on those countries was needed because of the finding of the requirement for vetting wasn’t being properly done, why did we let the soccer players in? Why did we let their family members? Why did we let their coaches? Why did we let their doctors?”
Justice Department attorney Tyler Becker acknowledged that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has ignored the 39-country halt “in a few contexts.” The visa decisions impacting the World Cup are made by another government agency, the State Department. It, too, enforces special limits on visas for citizens of the same 39 countries, but that policy contains an exception for “participants in certain major sporting events.”
McConnell rejected the notion that his order would have prevented the federal government from pausing Saudi applications after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That decision, he said, was clearly rooted in rational security needs as opposed to the Trump administration’s more sweeping suspension of immigration processing.
Earlier in the hourlong hearing, McConnell joked that an attorney for those challenging the halt might want to speed his argument — because the Argentina-England World Cup semifinal was just minutes away and some fans in the courtroom were eager to see it. But the Obama-appointed judge quickly emphasized he was kidding.
LOS ANGELES — British-born California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton — who said he was cheering for the United States while it was still in the mix — today said he wanted Americans to help England prevail.
“Maybe a small consolation would be for them to just let England win the World cup here on American soil 250 years later,” Hilton, a Republican, told an annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials. The remark was received with a mix of boos, groans and some laughter.
Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch was in a jovial mood during the usually combative PMQs by calling for all MPs to unite behind England against Argentina this evening.
Badenoch said that while Keir Starmer may be “disappointed that he won’t be emulating his hero Harold Wilson in winning multiple elections … we all hope that he may be about to emulate him in another way, by being the prime minister when England win the World Cup.” England’s only previous success came in 1966.
The Tory leader said that was something “every single one of us in this house should get behind, especially the SNP.” But the diminished rump of Scottish independence-supporting MPs, possibly still bruised from going out in the World Cup group stage, shook their heads.
Indeed, opposition to England’s success crossed party lines.
Scottish Labour MP Brian Leishman told Blue Light News he’ll be watching “from behind the couch and the cracks in our fingers,” adding it will be “unbearable” if England makes the final.
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