WASHINGTON—A federal judge in New York blocked deportations late Saturday of those detained on entry to the United States after an executive order from the U.S. president targeted citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Judge Ann Donnelly of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn granted a request from the American Civil Liberties Union to stop the deportations after determining that the risk of injury to those detained by being returned to their home countries necessitated the decision.

Minutes after the judge’s ruling in New York, another came in Virginia when U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema issued a temporary restraining order to block for seven days the removal of any green-card holders being detained at Dulles International Airport. Brinkema’s action also ordered that lawyers have access to those held there because of the ban.

Donald Trump’s order reverberated across the world Saturday, making it increasingly clear that the measure he had promised during his presidential campaign was casting a wider net than even his opponents had feared.

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Confusion and concern among immigrant advocates mounted throughout the day as travellers from the Middle East were detained at U.S. airports or sent home. A lawsuit filed on behalf of two Iraqi men challenged Trump’s executive action, which was signed Friday and initially cast as applying to refugees and migrants.

As the day progressed, administration officials said the sweeping order also targeted U.S. legal residents from the named countries – green-card holders – who were abroad when it was signed. Also subject to being barred entry into the United States are some dual nationals, or people born in one of the seven countries who hold passports even from U.S. allies, such as the United Kingdom.

Yet, an official of the Department of Homeland Security late Saturday said foreign-born U.S. residents who could have been barred from re-entering the United States under the immigration order have been allowed back into the country.

The DHS official who briefed reporters on Saturday night spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss details of the matter.

Trump’s order Friday barred citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – from entering the United States for 90 days. That meant that even those with permanent residency “green cards” or other visas risked not being let back in to the United States. But the official said all green-card holders from the seven countries who sought to enter the U.S. on Saturday were granted special permission.

It’s not clear if other green-card holders will be admitted. The official said cases are being reviewed individually.

The virtually unprecedented measures triggered harsh reactions from not only Democrats and others who typically advocate for immigrants but also key sectors of the U.S. business community. Leading technology companies recalled scores of overseas employees and sharply criticized the president. Legal experts forecast a wave of litigation over the order, calling it unconstitutional.

Yet Trump, who centred his campaign in part on his vow to crack down on illegal immigrants and impose what became known as his “Muslim ban,” was unbowed. As White House officials insisted that the measure strengthens national security, the president stood squarely behind it.

“It’s not a Muslim ban, but we were totally prepared,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “You see it at the airports, you see it all over. It’s working out very nicely, and we’re going to have a very, very strict ban, and we’re going to have extreme vetting, which we should have had in this country for many years.”

ACLU lawyers also filed a motion for class certification, in an effort to represent all refugees and other immigrants who they said were being unlawfully detained at ports of entry.

During the hearing, ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt informed the court that he had received word of a deportation to Syria, scheduled within the hour. That prompted Donnelly to ask if the government could assure that the person would not suffer irreparable harm. Receiving no such assurance, she granted the stay to the broad group included in the ACLU’s request.

A senior Department of Homeland Security official had no comment about the rulings late Saturday and said the department was consulting with its lawyers.

The official said enforcement of the president’s order on Saturday had created minimal disruption, given that only a small number of the several hundred thousand travelers arriving at U.S. airports daily had been affected.

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Nationwide, he said, 109 people had been denied entry into the United States. All had been in transit when Trump signed the order, and some had already departed the United States on flights by late Saturday while others were still being detained awaiting flights. Also, 173 people had not been allowed to board U.S.-bound planes at foreign airports.

Though several congressional Republicans denounced the order, the vast majority remained silent and a few voiced crucial support — including, most prominently, House Speaker Paul Ryan, who had rejected Trump’s anti-Muslim proposals during the campaign.

“This is not a religious test, and it is not a ban on people of any religion,” Ryan said Saturday. “This order does not affect the vast majority of Muslims in the world.”

The president’s order suspends admission to the U.S. of all refugees for 120 days and bars for 90 days the entry of any citizen from the seven countries. The list excludes several majority-Muslim nations — notably Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia — where the Trump Organization, now run by the president’s sons, is active and which in some cases have also faced troublesome issues with terrorism.

According to the text of the order, the restriction applies to countries that have already been excluded from programs allowing people to travel to the United States without a visa because of terrorism concerns. Hewing closely to nations already named as terrorism concerns elsewhere in law might have allowed the White House to avoid angering powerful and wealthy majority-Muslim allies, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Amid widespread confusion on Saturday about how the order will be enforced, some administration officials acknowledged that its rollout had been chaotic. Officials tried to reassure travellers and their families, pointing out that green-card holders in the U.S. will not be affected and noting that the Department of Homeland Security is allowed to grant waivers to those individuals and others deemed to not pose a security threat.

It can take years for someone to become a green-card holder, or lawful permanent resident authorized to permanently live and work in the country.

“If you’ve been living in the United States for 15 years and you own a business and your family is here, will you be granted a waiver? I’m assuming yes, but we are working that out,” said one official, who could not be more specific because details remained so cloudy. A senior White House official later said that waivers will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and that green-card holders in the U.S. will have to meet with a consular officer before leaving the country.

But officials made clear that the federal officers detaining refugees and migrants with valid U.S. visas and restricting them from entering the country were following orders handed down by top DHS officials, at the White House’s behest.

The order drew outrage from a range of activist and advocates for Muslims, Arabs and immigrants. More than 4,000 academics from universities nationwide signed a statement of opposition and voiced concern the ban would become permanent. They described it as discriminatory and “inhumane, ineffective and un-American.”

The executive action has caused “complete chaos” and torn apart families, said Abed Ayoub, legal and policy director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

In New York, lawyers for two Iraqi men detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport – one of whom served the U.S. military mission in Iraq – filed a federal lawsuit challenging the order as unconstitutional.

One of the men, Hameed Khalid Darweesh, was released Saturday afternoon without explanation from federal officials. “This is the humanity, this is the soul of America,” he told reporters. “This is what pushed me to move, to leave my country and come here. . . . America is the land of freedom - the land of freedom, the land of the right.”

Other advocates promised further legal challenges. The Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced the order and said it would file a lawsuit challenging it as unconstitutional.

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