Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly repudiated allegations on Tuesday that his agency refused to follow a pair of court orders issued last weekend that directed officials to grant refugees held at airports access to legal counsel.
“No member of the Homeland Security team ignored a court order,” Kelly told reporters at an impromptu press conference Tuesday afternoon. “I’ve heard these reports and I’ve asked people to run down information for me.”
The court orders handed down on Saturday came after hundreds of refugees and individuals from the seven countries included in President Trump’s immigration ban were detained at airports in New York, Virginia and elsewhere across the country.
One of the orders, issued by a federal judge in Brooklyn, granted a temporary stay of removal to refugees who had arrived in the U.S. just after Trump signed the executive action Friday evening and to those already en route. A second federal judge then ordered that travelers being held at Dulles International Airport are entitled to speak with attorneys.
Damon Silvers, special counsel at the AFL-CIO and one of the lawyers who sought to help visa holders who were stranded at Dulles, January 29, 2017
“>claimed in a tweet Sunday morning that detainees were told by Customs and Border Protection officials that they were not going to see attorneys, despite the court order. Other reports described similar instances in which customs agents had said they were instructed to ignore the court orders.
“We would not ignore a court order,” Kelly stated emphatically, adding that the agency “immediately implemented” both federal judges’ orders.
