Trump Administration's Revised Immigration Ban Faces Uncertain Future

President Trump's new immigration ban faces an uncertain future after multiple delays and reports suggesting that it will look substantially different than the original version.

The administration announced it would release a revised version of the ban after the first executive order enacting the policy faced multiple legal challenges and was suspended by the courts. The White House continues to insist that the original order, which banned immigration by citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen and led to confusion and protests at the country's airports, was legally above board.

The new version, presumably, would be designed to survive legal challenge.

Both the Associated Press and the Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, report that the new executive order will exclude Iraq from the list of banned countries.

The Post also notes that Trump had planned to sign the new order Wednesday of this week, but it had to be delayed yet again. The White House had initially planned to sign the revised ban last week but then punted the roll-out further down the line.

Patch reached out to the White House to ask about the reason for the delay but received no response.

Asked about the timing of the new ban by The Hill's Jordan Fabian, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, "When we have one, we’ll announce it."

The Post and the AP also note that the new order will likely not exempt religious minorities from the immigration ban. Since opponents tried to paint the order as a "Muslim ban," which Trump proposed during the campaign, exemptions for non-Muslims invite criticism. All the countries named have Muslim-majority populations.

If the reported changes end up in the final order, it will represent a substantial shift in administration policy. Senior policy adviser to the president Stephen Miller said Feb. 21 on Fox News that the new executive order would "have the same basic policy outcome" as the first directive.

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