Trump Administration Must Admit Thousands Of Refugees, Federal Judge Rules

A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to admit approximately 12,000 refugees into the United States.

According to the Associated Press, the court order partially blocks President Trump’s efforts to suspend the country’s refugee admissions program.

Biden Judge Jamal Whitehead of Seattle has ordered President Trump to admit ~12,000 refugees into the country. pic.twitter.com/IdVtXO6l9d

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 6, 2025

From the Associated Press:

The order from U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead followed arguments from the Justice Department and refugee resettlement agencies over how to interpret a federal appeals court ruling that significantly narrowed an earlier decision from Whitehead.

During a hearing last week, the administration said it should only have to process 160 refugees into the country and that it would likely appeal any order requiring it to admit thousands. But the judge dismissed the government’s analysis, saying it required “not just reading between the lines” of the 9th Circuit’s ruling, “but hallucinating new text that simply is not there.”

“This Court will not entertain the Government’s result-oriented rewriting of a judicial order that clearly says what it says,” Whitehead wrote Monday. “The Government is free, of course, to seek further clarification from the Ninth Circuit. But the Government is not free to disobey statutory and constitutional law — and the direct orders of this Court and the Ninth Circuit — while it seeks such clarification.”

The refugee program, created by Congress in 1980, is a form of legal migration to the U.S. for people displaced by war, natural disaster or persecution — a process that often takes years and involves significant vetting. It is different from asylum, by which people newly arrived in the U.S. can seek permission to remain because they fear persecution in their home country.

Upon beginning his second term on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump issued an executive order suspending the program.

That triggered a lawsuit by individual refugees whose efforts to resettle in the U.S. have been halted as well as major refugee aid groups, who argued that they have had to lay off staff. The groups said the administration froze their funding for processing refugee applications overseas and providing support, such as short-term rental assistance for those already in the U.S.

BREAKING: Activist Judge Jamal Whitehead orders the Trump administration to take in roughly 12,000 refugees.

A judge nominated by Joe Biden in 2023. pic.twitter.com/cIMswIPn87

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 6, 2025

Per NDTV:

Whitehead had originally blocked Trump’s executive order halting refugee admissions, ruling in February that it likely violated the 1980 Refugee Act.

But his decision was overruled by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals a month later.

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“Had the Ninth Circuit intended to impose a two-week limitation — one that would reduce the protected population from about 12,000 to 160 individuals — it would have done so explicitly,” Whitehead wrote.

Read the full order HERE.