The landing was threatened if an Iranian scientist who had received a U.S. professional exchange visa was allowed on board | Clement Sabourin/AFP via Getty Images US threatened to deny landing to Swiss flight if Trump travel ban passenger aboard: suit Papers filed show Justice Department taking narrow view of federal court order limiting impact of executive decree.

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials implementing President Donald Trump's travel ban executive order threatened to deny landing to a Swiss Airlines flight earlier this week if an Iranian scientist who had received a U.S. professional exchange visa was allowed on board, a federal lawsuit contends.

Papers filed in connection with the suit filed by Iranian genetic researcher Samira Asgari also show the Justice Department is taking a narrow view of a federal court order limiting the impact of Trump's executive decree, rebuffing immigrant lawyers' position that the judicial order issued early Sunday in another case requires the government to tell airlines to allow some travelers onto flights bound for Boston.

An email a Justice Department attorney sent earlier this week rejected the notion that the order compelled U.S. authorities to allow Asgari to board a flight in Zurich with a J-1 exchange visa issued to her on Jan. 27— the same day Trump moved to limit travel by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries, including Iran.

"We do not read the Court's order to require such action, but we have passed the information along to CBP [Customs & Border Protection]," Justice Civil Division attorney Katie Shinners wrote Tuesday afternoon in a message to Asgari's attorney, Sabin Willett.

A U.S. consular official personally blocked Asgari from boarding a flight from Frankfurt to Boston on Saturday, Jan. 28, according to the suit Asgari filed in U.S. District Court in Boston. She tried again from Zurich on Tuesday, but the airline said it was told by CBP to deny her boarding. The suit says CBP also threatened to deny landing rights to the Swiss International Air Lines flight and to fine the company $50,000 if it allowed Asgari to board.

"Swiss needs your assurance that the flight has permission to land and is advising us that, after the Court's order entered on Sunday, and in contravention of the order, it has been advised by CPB [sic] that she is not permitted to board," Willett wrote to Shinners and other DOJ lawyers Tuesday morning. "Please ASAP contact Swiss in Zurich to confirm that Ms. Asgari may board as the aircraft will be given permission to land at Logan without penalty."

Shinners did not specify exactly how or why the Justice Department disagreed with Willett's view of the order issued by Judge Allison Burroughs and Magistrate Judith Dein following an unusual hearing in the wee hours of Sunday morning at the federal courthouse in Boston.

"Customs and Border Protection shall notify airlines that have flights arriving at Logan Airport of this order and the fact that individuals on these flights will not be detained or returned based solely on the basis of the Executive Order,” Burroughs and Dein wrote in the order.

Asgari is now seeking a temporary restraining order to allow her return to the U.S. The original lawsuit that led to the Sunday order has now been reassigned to Judge Nathaniel Gorton, a George W. Bush appointee. However, Asgari's case was assigned to Burroughs, a Barack Obama appointee and one of the judges who issued the Friday order.

Gorton has set a hearing Friday afternoon on the original suit in Boston, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union's local chapter. No hearing was immediately set on Asgari's case.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said lawyers are reviewing the complaint. Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security and its Customs and Border Protection division did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

The Boston cases are just two of dozens of suits and habeas corpus petitions filed in federal court around the country in the wake of Trump's order Friday. Many of the individual cases have been resolved after the Trump administration eased and then eliminated the impact of the order on green-card holders. However, suits or motions mounting broad challenges to the order remain pending in Brooklyn, N.Y., Alexandria, Va., Seattle, Portland, Ore., San Francisco and Los Angeles, in addition to Boston.

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