The Trump Administration at Work? DHS inspector general: Travel-ban confusion led agents to violate court order

In a letter Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general notified lawmakers of the violations. He also alerted them that his findings have become bogged down in a battle with the department over redactions that he said would obscure the true failures of the administration’s handling of the first travel ban.  In the early days of the Trump administration, the president signed an executive order temporarily banning entry to the United States by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries, as well as refugees.

According to the Post, the inspector general’s letter is particularly critical of the leadership of the Customs and Border Protection agency.

“While CBP was compliant at U.S. ports of entry with travelers who had already arrived, CBP was very aggressive in preventing affected travelers from boarding aircraft bound for the United States, and took actions that, in our view, violated two separate court orders that enjoined them from this activity,” Roth’s letter says.

For instance, after a federal judge in Massachusetts issued a temporary restraining order on Jan. 29 instructing CBP not to notify airlines that passengers will be “detained or returned based solely on the basis of the Executive Order,” government documents show that agents were doing precisely that two days later at Boston Logan International Airport.

Swiss Airlines, for example, was notified on Jan. 31 that a prospective passenger, a 31-year-old Iranian, would probably be denied entry to the United States. Dozens of similarly eligible travelers were not allowed to board flights that they should have been able to board, according to a person familiar with the inspector general’s findings.

KJ