Tag Archives: Trump Administration

U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis to talk Islamic State, Syria in Middle East

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis is greeted by Saudi Armed Forces Chief of Joint Staff General Abdul Rahman Al Banyan (L) upon his arrival at King Salman Air Base, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – On his first trip as U.S defense secretary to parts of the Middle East and Africa, Jim Mattis will focus on the fight against Islamic State and articulating President Donald Trump’s policy toward Syria, officials and experts say.

His trip may give clarity to adversaries and allies alike about the Trump administration’s tactics in the fight against Islamic State militants and its willingness to use military power more liberally than former President Barack Obama did.

One of the main questions from allies about Syria is whether Washington has formulated a strategy to prevent areas seized from militants from collapsing into ethnic and sectarian feuds or succumbing to a new generation of extremism, as parts of Iraq and Afghanistan have done since the U.S. invaded them.

U.S.-backed forces are fighting to retake the Islamic State strongholds of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, and questions remain about what will happen after that and what role other allies such as Saudi Arabia, can play. There are signs that Trump has given the U.S. military more latitude to use force, including ordering a cruise missile strike against a Syrian air base and cheering the unprecedented use of a monster bomb against an Islamic State target in Afghanistan last week.Administration officials said the U.S. strategy in Syria — to defeat Islamic State while still calling for the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — is unchanged, a message Mattis is expected to reinforce.

Arriving in the region on Tuesday, his stops include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and Israel.

“Particularly with the Saudis and the Israelis, part of the discussion will be clarifying for them what our strategy is towards Syria in light of the strike,” said Christine Wormuth, a former number three at the Pentagon.

Islamic State has lost most of the territory it has held in Iraq since 2014, controlling about 6.8 percent of the nation.

DEEPER INTO YEMEN

The United States also is considering deepening its role in Yemen’s conflict by more directly aiding its Gulf allies that are battling Houthi rebels who have some Iranian support, officials say, potentially relaxing a U.S. policy that limited American support.

“The Saudi concern is strategically Iran… The near-term Saudi concern is how they send a message to the Iranians in Yemen, and they would like full-throated American support,” said Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

The review of possible new U.S. assistance, which includes intelligence support, would come amid evidence that Iran is sending advanced weapons and military advisers to the Houthis.

Congressional sources say the Trump administration is on the verge of notifying Congress of the proposed sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia. Some U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern about civilian casualties in Riyadh’s campaign in Yemen.

Experts say Egyptian officials are likely to seek more support from Mattis, a retired Marine general, for fighting militants in the country’s Sinai peninsula.

Islamic State has waged a low-level war against soldiers and police in the Sinai for years, but increasingly is targeting Christians and broadening its reach to Egypt’s heart.

“They would also like more American support in fighting terrorism in the Sinai peninsula and they like more American confidence that they are doing it the right way,” said Alterman.

Mattis also will be visiting a U.S. military base in Djibouti, at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, where operations in Yemen and Somalia are staged, and just miles from a new Chinese installation.

The White House recently granted the U.S. military broader authority to carry out strikes against al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants in Somalia.

Last week the Pentagon announced that a few dozen U.S. troops had been deployed to Somalia to train members of the Somali National Army.

(Editing by John Walcott and Alistair Bell)

Trump administration drops North Carolina ‘bathroom bill’ lawsuit

FILE PHOTO: A sign protesting a North Carolina law restricting transgender bathroom access. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

(Reuters) – The Trump administration on Friday dropped a lawsuit accusing North Carolina of discriminating against LGBT residents after the state replaced its “bathroom bill”, although a key civil liberties group vowed to keep fighting the new law in court.

In a two-sentence court filing the Justice Department said it had dropped its lawsuit, filed last year by the Obama administration, because the North Carolina legislature had replaced it with a new law called House Bill 142.

The filing marks the first significant move in a complicated legal battle challenging the state’s nondiscrimination laws since the replacement of the original law, known as House Bill 2 or more commonly as the “bathroom bill.”

House Bill 2’s most controversial provision was the requirement that in state-run buildings transgender people use the bathrooms, changing rooms and showers that corresponded to the sex on their birth certificates rather than their gender identity.

A number of businesses and sports leagues boycotted North Carolina because they saw the year-old law as discriminatory against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Civil liberties groups also protested the move.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of North Carolina, and Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit challenging the law in March of last year. That was followed in May by the Justice Department’s own suit against House Bill 2.

James Esseks, the ACLU’s LGBT Project Director said the new law is flawed because it keeps a ban on cities and counties from creating their own nondiscriminatory ordinaces until 2020 and relegates to the state legislature the power to regulate bathroom access. The legislature has purposefully not taken any action to define access, he said.

House Bill 142 “leaves transgender people in limbo and that’s intentional,” Esseks said. “This does not fix the problem. It creates confusion.”

Esseks said his group planned to amend their lawsuit soon to challenge the new bill.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler and Chizu Nomiyama)

Activists fear federal review of U.S. police agreements could imperil reforms

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks at a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, U.S., March 2, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas/File Photo

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Trump administration’s decision to review federal agreements with troubled police departments nationwide could imperil ongoing reform efforts, particularly in Baltimore and Chicago, civil rights advocates said on Tuesday, even as city officials vowed to continue pursuing improvements.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ memorandum ordering the review endangers one of the key legacies of former President Barack Obama, whose Department of Justice reached more than a dozen agreements with police departments over constitutional abuses.

Many of the Obama-era investigations took place amid a string of high-profile police killings of minorities that sparked protests across the country.

Sessions’ order will likely have its most immediate impact on Baltimore and Chicago, both of which have been negotiating reform settlements with the department since before Donald Trump became president in January.

The memo was released on Monday, the same day that the Justice Department asked a judge to delay an agreement to revamp Baltimore’s beleaguered department for three months just days before the judge was set to approve the deal.

Officials in both cities said they would press ahead with reforms despite the memo. But advocates said the review could undermine those efforts and suggests the Justice Department under Sessions will not undertake future civil rights investigations.

“He’s talking about the federal government turning its back on a pattern and practice of racialized policing that goes back decades in this country,” said Jeffrey Robinson, the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “To suggest that the government should just leave it to local police departments is just frightening.”

Police unions, however, have expressed frustration with some of the court-approved settlements, known as consent decrees, and they welcomed the shift in policy.

“From a rank-and-file police officer’s point of view, we’re very happy,” said Bill Johnson, head of the National Association of Police Officers. “These agencies have come under a very heavy hand from the Department of Justice.”

‘PUNCH TO THE GUT’

The Justice Department is authorized to investigate whether police departments engage in an unconstitutional “pattern and practice,” such as unnecessary force or racial profiling.

Under Obama, it probed two dozen departments and reached reform agreements with 15, more than either of his predecessors, Bill Clinton or George W. Bush.

In Baltimore, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis called the move a “punch to the gut” at a Tuesday news conference.

Though he said reforms would proceed, Davis said the court-enforced agreement is important because it ensures implementation even if he and Mayor Catherine Pugh leave office.

But the head of the Baltimore police union, Lieutenant Gene Ryan, said the union should have more of a voice in the process.

“I want to meet with Donald Trump,” he said, according to the Baltimore Sun newspaper. “I want to tell him what’s really going on.”

In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson likewise said they remain committed to reforms despite Sessions’ order.

A former Obama administration official who oversaw federal police reforms at the Justice Department for six years, Christy Lopez, said the review leaves her most concerned about Chicago.

“I’ve never seen a city that cries out more for a consent decree than Chicago,” said Lopez, now a visiting law professor at Georgetown University.

A Chicago pastor and retired police officer, Richard Wooten, said activists would hold Emanuel and other city officials accountable to push reforms despite the Sessions order.

“This is a sad day, but on the flip side, we saw this coming,” Wooten said.

Trump has often decried Chicago’s rising murder rate, threatening in January to “send in the feds.”

It is not clear whether the Justice Department could secure changes to existing consent decrees, such as those governing police departments in Cleveland; Newark, New Jersey; Seattle; New Orleans; and Ferguson, Missouri. That would require approval from federal judges, some of whom have made clear they will not accept changes without good cause.

Some unions have chafed under consent decrees, calling them costly, ineffective and stigmatizing to officers. Sessions’ memo touched on that issue, saying the department should ensure police officers are not tarnished by the “misdeeds of individual bad actors.”

Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which has advocated for police reform, said the government has only investigated “the worst offenders” – 25 departments out of some 18,000 since 2009.

Robinson, the ACLU lawyer, said his group and others would consider legal action to enforce agreements but warned that any retreat by the federal government would make it harder to monitor reforms.

“If the federal government is silent, it is sending a message to local police departments: do whatever you want and we will look the other way,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Julia Harte and Ian Simpson in Washington, Timothy McLaughlin in Chicago and Tom James in Seattle; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

House speaker tells Trump healthcare bill lacks votes: CNN

U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Representative Greg Walden (R-OR) (center L, at table) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX) (center R, at table) testify at an early-morning Rules Committee hearing as Congress considers health care legislation to repeal Obamacare at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., March 24, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Richard Cowan and Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans in Congress said they lacked the votes needed for passage of their U.S. healthcare system overhaul and a key committee chairman came out in opposition after Donald Trump demanded a vote on Friday in a gamble that could hobble his presidency.

Amid a chaotic scramble for votes, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who has championed the bill, met with Trump at the White House. Ryan told the president there were not enough votes to pass the plan, U.S. media reported.

The showdown on the House floor follows Trump’s decision to cut off negotiations to shore up support inside his own party, with moderates and the most conservative lawmakers balking. On Thursday night he had issued an ultimatum that lawmakers pass the legislation that has his backing or keep in place the Obamacare law that Republicans have sought to dismantle since it was enacted seven years ago.

“We’ll see what happens,” Trump said at the White House, adding that Ryan should keep his job regardless of the outcome.

The White House said the vote was set for about 3:30 p.m. (1930 GMT) on Friday on the bill to replace Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare.

“There’s nobody that objectively can look at this effort and say the president didn’t do every single thing he possibly could with this team to get every vote possible,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters.

Republicans control Congress and the White House but have deep divisions over the first major legislative test since Trump became president on Jan. 20.

In a blow to the bill’s prospects, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen announced his opposition, expressing concern about reductions in coverage under the Medicaid insurance program for the poor and the retraction of “essential” health benefits that insurers must cover.

“We need to get this right for all Americans,” Frelinghuysen said.

Representative Rodney Davis, a member of the House Republican team trying to win passage, said the bill was short of the needed votes, and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney added it was unclear if enough support was present.

Vice President Mike Pence, a former House member and influential among Republican lawmakers, postponed a planned trip to Arkansas and Tennessee to help secure passage.

“I’m still optimistic,” Spicer said. “I feel like we’re continuing to work hard. But at the end of the day you can’t force somebody to do something.”

Trump and House Republican leaders cannot afford to lose many votes in their own party because Democrats are unified in opposition, saying the bill would take away medical insurance from millions of Americans and leave the more-than-$3 trillion U.S. healthcare system in disarray.

Republican supporters said the plan would achieve their goal of rolling back the government’s “nanny state” role in healthcare.

FOREHEAD TATTOO

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said, “What’s happening today is a lose-lose situation for the Republicans. It’s a lose-lose for the American people, that’s for sure. But the people who vote for this will have this vote tattooed to their foreheads as they go forward.”

Failure of the measure would call into question Trump’s ability to get other key parts of his agenda, including tax cuts and a boost in infrastructure spending, through a Congress controlled by his own party.

“If it doesn’t pass, this issue is dead,” Republican Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, a bill supporter, said of Republican healthcare legislation. “This is the one shot.”

Even if the legislation passes in the House, it faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where Republicans have expressed misgivings.

Healthcare was the first major test of how Trump, a real estate magnate who touted his deal-making prowess in the 2016 presidential campaign, would work with Congress. Days of negotiations led to some changes in the bill but failed to produce a consensus deal.

U.S. stocks were mixed on Friday in early afternoon trading, having pared earlier gains, while U.S. treasuries were mostly higher.

Leading Republicans had taken to the House floor to make their case to pass the bill and implored conservatives to seize the opportunity to make good on the party’s long promise to get rid of Obamacare.

‘ONLY OUR FIRST STEP’

“Today we are faced with a stark choice,” said Republican Diane Black, who heads the Budget Committee. “While no legislation is perfect, this bill does accomplish some important reforms.”

Black called the bill “only our first step.”

Trump added on Twitter, “This is finally your chance for a great plan!”

Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a breast cancer survivor, called the bill “an immoral piece of legislation” that would gut medical coverage and patient protections.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday found 56 percent of U.S. voters opposed the House bill, with only 17 percent supporting it. Quinnipiac said its poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Replacing Obama’s signature health care plan was a key campaign pledge for Trump and Republicans, who view it as overly intrusive and expensive.

Obamacare boosted the number of Americans with health insurance through mandates on individuals and employers, and income-based subsidies. About 20 million Americans gained insurance coverage through the law.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said under the Republican legislation 14 million people would lose medical coverage by next year and more than 24 million would be uninsured in 2026.

The House plan would rescind a range of taxes created by Obamacare, end a penalty on people who refuse to obtain health insurance, end Obamacare’s income-based subsidies to help people buy insurance while creating less-generous age-based tax credits

It also would end Obamacare’s expansion of the Medicaid state-federal insurance program for the poor, cut future federal Medicaid funding and let states impose work requirements on some Medicaid recipients.

House leaders agreed to a series of last-minute changes to try to win over disgruntled conservatives, including ending the Obamacare requirement that insurers cover certain “essential benefits” such as maternity care, mental health services and prescription drug coverage.

The House and Senate had hoped to deliver a new healthcare bill to Trump by April 8, when Congress is scheduled to begin a two-week spring break.

Click on the links below for related graphics:

Graphic on Obamacare and Republican healthcare bill (http://tmsnrt.rs/2n0ZMKf)

Graphic on shifting positions in the U.S. Senate on Republican healthcare bill (http://tmsnrt.rs/2mUE4Xf)

Graphic on poll on Americans’ views of the Republican healthcare bill (http://tmsnrt.rs/2n7f3e4)

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Susan Cornwell, Jeff Mason, David Morgan, David Lawder, Amanda Becker, and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Bill Trott)

Virginia court rules for Trump in travel ban dispute, order still halted

FILE PHOTO - Immigration activists, including members of the DC Justice for Muslims Coalition, rally against the Trump administration's new ban against travelers from six Muslim-majority nations, outside of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington, U.S. on March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Thayer/File Photo

By Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) – A U.S. federal judge in Virginia ruled on Friday that President Donald Trump’s travel ban was justified, increasing the likelihood the measure will go before the Supreme Court as the decision took an opposing view to courts in Maryland and Hawaii that have halted the order.

U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga rejected arguments by Muslim plaintiffs who claimed Trump’s March 6 executive order temporarily banning the entry of all refugees and travelers from six Muslim-majority countries was discriminatory.

The decision went against two previous court rulings that put an emergency halt to the order before it was set to take effect on March 16. The order remains halted.

Trump has said he plans to appeal those unfavorable rulings to the U.S. Supreme Court if needed, and differing opinions by lower courts give more grounds for the highest court to take up the case.

Trenga, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, said the complaint backed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights group, found that more than 20 individuals who brought the suit had been able to show they were harmed by the travel ban since they might be unable to reunite with their relatives.

But he also ruled that Trump’s revised order, which replaced a more sweeping version signed on Jan. 27 and rejected by courts, fell within the president’s authority to make decisions about immigration.

He said that since the order did not mention religion, the court could not look behind it at Trump’s statements about a “Muslim ban” to determine what was in the “drafter’s heart of hearts.”

Trump has said the ban is necessary to protect the country from terrorist attacks, but his first order was halted by a federal judge in Seattle and a U.S. appeals court in San Francisco due to concerns it violated the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against religious bias.

“We’re confident that the president’s fully lawful and necessary action will ultimately be allowed to move forward through the rest of the court systems,” said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer at a briefing.

CAIR said it would appeal the decision to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Lena Masri, CAIR’s national litigation director, said the 4th Circuit and the Supreme Court “are the judicial bodies that will ultimately decide whether the Constitution protects the rights of Muslim Americans.”

OTHER COURT ACTION

A ruling by U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii – an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama – put a stop to the two central sections of the revised ban that blocked travelers from six countries and refugees, while leaving other parts of the order in place.

U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland, also an Obama appointee, only put a halt to the section on travelers.

The Virginia lawsuit sought to strike down the revised ban in its entirety.

Watson scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to decide whether his temporary order blocking the travel and refugee restrictions should be converted into a more formal preliminary injunction. The Justice Department has said it would oppose that bid.

The government has appealed Chuang’s decision in Maryland, also to the 4th circuit, and a hearing in that case is scheduled for May 8.

Other lawsuits against the ban continue to move forward around the country. Also on Friday, the Southern Poverty Law Center and other groups filed a new complaint in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. on behalf of Muslim community organizations.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additional reporting from Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Washington talks end without agreement on Israeli settlements

Jason Greenblatt (L), U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem March 13, 2017. Courtesy Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv/Handout via REUTERS

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration reiterated its concerns about Israeli settlement activity, the two sides said on Thursday, as a round of talks ended without agreement over limiting future construction on land the Palestinians want for a state.

The four days of high-level meetings in Washington marked the latest step by President Donald Trump’s aides aimed at opening the way to renewed peace diplomacy between Israel and the Palestinians, despite deep skepticism in the United States and Middle East over the chances for success.

Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, who recently returned from a visit to the region, led the U.S. delegation in what were described as “intensive discussions” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff Yoav Horowitz and foreign policy adviser Jonathan Schachter.

Despite setting a more positive tone toward Israel than his predecessor Barack Obama, Trump urged Netanyahu during a White House visit last month to “hold back on settlements for a little bit.” The two then agreed that their aides would seek an accommodation on how much Israel can build and where.

“The United States delegation reiterated President Trump’s concerns regarding settlement activity in the context of moving towards a peace agreement,” according to a joint statement released by the White House.

“The Israeli delegation made clear that Israel’s intent going forward is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes those concerns into consideration,” it said. “The talks were serious and constructive, and they are ongoing.”

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been frozen since 2014 and settlements are one of the most heated issues. Palestinians want the West Bank and East Jerusalem for their own state, along with the Gaza Strip.

Most countries consider Israeli settlements, built on land captured in the 1967 Middle East war, to be illegal. Israel disagrees, citing historical and political links to the land, as well as security interests.

Trump has expressed some ambivalence about a two-state solution, the mainstay of U.S. policy for the past two decades. But he recently invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to visit.

Trump has not publicly detailed what kind of agreement he wants with Israel on settlements. But many supporters of a two-state solution have urged a formula that restricts construction to the large settlement blocs that Israel is expected to retain under any final peace accord.

In the talks, officials discussed measures for improving the climate for peace, according to the joint readout. It said a key focus was on steps that “could have a meaningful impact on the economic environment in the West Bank and Gaza,” and specifically a desire to advance efforts toward “self-sustainability” in electricity and water.

(Reporting By Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Trump administration grants permit for Keystone XL pipeline: TransCanada

A depot used to store pipes for Transcanada Corp's planned Keystone XL oil pipeline is seen in Gascoyne, North Dakota, January 25, 2017. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester

By Luciana Lopez

(Reuters) – The United States has issued a presidential permit for TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL oil pipeline, the Canadian company said on Friday, ending a years-long battle between environmentalists and the industry over whether Washington should approve it.

U.S. President Donald Trump will announce the permit alongside TransCanada <TRP.TO> Chief Executive Officer Russell Girling at the White House later Friday, according to a senior administration official. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said a Keystone XL announcement would come at 10:15 a.m. EDT.

TransCanada’s U.S.-listed shares <TRP.N> jumped 3.7 percent to $49.50 in premarket trading.

The pipeline linking Canadian oil sands to U.S. refiners had been blocked for years by former President Barack Obama, who said it would do nothing to reduce fuel prices for U.S. motorists and contribute to emissions linked to global warming. Environmental groups have forcefully opposed the pipeline.

Trump, however, campaigned on a promise to approve it, saying it would create thousands of jobs and help the oil industry, and signed an executive order soon after taking office in January to advance the project.

The multibillion-dollar Keystone XL pipeline would bring more than 800,000 barrels per day of heavy crude from Canada’s oil sands in Alberta into Nebraska, linking to an existing pipeline network feeding U.S. refineries and ports along the Gulf of Mexico.

Approvals are still needed from state regulators, and the pipeline could face legal challenges.

Expedited approval of projects is part of Trump’s approach to a 10-year, $1 trillion infrastructure package he promised on the campaign trail. The White House is looking for ways to speed up approvals and permits for other infrastructure projects, which can sometimes take years to go through a regulatory maze.

“It does fit into the overall strategy the president has for infrastructure,” the administration official said. The official, who asked not to be identified, added that Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, was also expected to be present at the announcement.

Conservatives have said they support quick approval. Nick Loris, an energy and environmental researcher at the Heritage Foundation, said on Thursday that approval would “re-establish some certainty and sanity to a permitting process that was hijacked by political pandering.”

Environmental groups that have opposed the pipeline say they will continue the fight with petitions, political pressure and mass protests.

(Reporting by Luciana Lopez in New York; Additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Exclusive: U.S. embassies ordered to identify population groups for tougher visa screening

A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer interviews people entering the United States from Mexico at the border crossing in San Ysidro, California, U.S. on October 14, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake

By Yeganeh Torbati, Mica Rosenberg and Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has directed U.S. diplomatic missions to identify “populations warranting increased scrutiny” and toughen screening for visa applicants in those groups, according to diplomatic cables seen by Reuters.

He has also ordered a “mandatory social media check” for all applicants who have ever been present in territory controlled by the Islamic State, in what two former U.S. officials said would be a broad, labor-intensive expansion of such screening. Social media screening is now done fairly rarely by consular officials, one of the former officials said.

Four cables, or memos, issued by Tillerson over the last two weeks provide insight into how the U.S. government is implementing what President Donald Trump has called “extreme vetting” of foreigners entering the United States, a major campaign promise. The cables also demonstrate the administrative and logistical hurdles the White House faces in executing its vision.

The memos, which have not been previously reported, provided instructions for implementing Trump’s March 6 revised executive order temporarily barring visitors from six Muslim-majority countries and all refugees, as well as a simultaneous memorandum mandating enhanced visa screening.

The flurry of cables to U.S. missions abroad issued strict new guidelines for vetting U.S. visa applicants, and then retracted some of them in response to U.S. court rulings that challenged central tenets of Trump’s executive order.

The final cable seen by Reuters, issued on March 17, leaves in place an instruction to consular chiefs in each diplomatic mission, or post, to convene working groups of law enforcement and intelligence officials to “develop a list of criteria identifying sets of post applicant populations warranting increased scrutiny.”

Applicants falling within one of these identified population groups should be considered for higher-level security screening, according to the March 17 cable.

Those population groups would likely vary from country to country, according to sources familiar with the cables, as the March 17 memo does not explicitly provide for coordination between the embassies.

Trump has said enhanced screening of foreigners is necessary to protect the country against terrorist attacks.

Advocates and immigration lawyers said the guidance could lead to visa applicants being profiled on the basis of nationality or religion rather than because they pose an actual threat to the United States.

“Most posts already have populations that they look at for fraud and security issues,” said Jay Gairson, a Seattle-based immigration attorney who has many clients from countries that would be affected by Trump’s travel ban.

“What this language effectively does is give the consular posts permission to step away from the focused factors they have spent years developing and revising, and instead broaden the search to large groups based on gross factors such as nationality and religion.”

Virginia Elliott, a spokeswoman for the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, said the department was working to implement Trump’s presidential memorandum “in accordance with its terms, in an orderly fashion, and in compliance with any relevant court orders, so as to increase the safety and security of the American people.”

State Department officials declined to comment on the specifics of the cables, saying they were internal communications.

CABLE FLURRY

In cables dated March 10 and March 15, Tillerson issued detailed instructions to consular officials for implementing Trump’s travel order, which was due to take effect on March 16.

Following successful legal challenges to an earlier, more sweeping travel ban signed by Trump in January, the White House issued a narrower version of the ban earlier this month.

On the same day Tillerson sent out his memo about implementing the new executive order on March 15, a federal court in Hawaii enjoined key parts of the order. That forced him to send another cable on March 16, rescinding much of his earlier guidance.

On March 17, Tillerson issued a fourth cable that set out a new list of instructions for consular officials. At the same time, it withdrew more sections of the March 15 guidance, because they had been issued without approval from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is responsible for reviewing all agency rules.

A White House spokesman referred questions about the cables to the State Department and OMB.

Reuters could not determine to what extent the cables departed from guidance given to consular officers under previous administrations, since this type of guidance is not made public.

Some of the language in the cables, including the line that “all visa decisions are national security decisions,” is similar to statements made by U.S. officials in the past.

Some consular officials suggested some of the March 17 guidance – aside from identifying particular populations and doing more social media checks – differed little from current practice, since vetting of visa applicants is already rigorous.

PHONE NUMBERS, EMAIL ADDRESSES

Among the instructions rescinded by Tillerson were a set of specific questions for applicants from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, the countries targeted by Trump’s March 6 executive order, as well as members of populations identified as security risks.

The questions asked where applicants had lived, traveled and worked over the previous 15 years. Applicants would also have been required to provide prior passport numbers and all phone numbers, email addresses and social media handles used in the previous five years.

The March 16 and 17 cables from Tillerson instructed consular officers not to ask those questions, due to court action and pending approval by the OMB.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have called for wider social media screening for those seeking to enter the United States, saying that such checks could help to spot possible links to terrorist activity.

Some former officials and immigration attorneys cautioned that delving deeper into applicants’ social media use could significantly lengthen processing time of visas.

“There’s so much social media out there,” said Anne Richard, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration. “It’s not something you can do on a timely basis.”

Both the March 15 and March 17 cables seem to anticipate delays as a result of their implementation. They urged embassies to restrict the number of visa interviews handled per day, acknowledging this “may cause interview appointment backlogs to rise.”

(Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco and Arshad Mohammed and John Walcott in Washington; Editing by Sue Horton and Ross Colvin)

Exclusive: Tillerson plans to skip NATO meeting, visit Russia in April – sources

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks in Washington. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Arshad Mohammed and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to skip a meeting with NATO foreign ministers next month in order to stay home for a visit by China’s president and will go to Russia later in April, U.S. officials said on Monday, disclosing an itinerary that allies may see as giving Moscow priority over them.

Tillerson intends to miss what would have been his first meeting of the 28 NATO allies on April 5-6 in Brussels so that he can attend President Donald Trump’s expected April 6-7 talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, four current and former U.S. officials said.

Skipping the NATO meeting and visiting Moscow could risk feeding a perception that Trump may be putting U.S. dealings with big powers first, while leaving waiting those smaller nations that depend on Washington for security, two former U.S. officials said.

Trump has often praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Tillerson worked with Russia’s government for years as a top executive at Exxon Mobil Corp, and has questioned the wisdom of sanctions against Russia that he said could harm U.S. businesses.

A State Department spokeswoman said Tillerson would meet on Wednesday with foreign ministers from 26 of the 27 other NATO countries — all but Croatia — at a gathering of the coalition working to defeat the Islamic State militant group.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was due to have arrived in Washington on Monday for a three-day visit that was to include talks with U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and to take part in the counter-Islamic State meetings.

The State Department spokeswoman said Tillerson would not have a separate, NATO-focused meeting the 26 foreign ministers in Washington but rather that they would meet in the counter-Islamic State talks.

“After these consultations and meetings, in April he will travel to a meeting of the G7 (Group of Seven) in Italy and then on to meetings in Russia,” she added, saying U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Tom Shannon would represent the United States at the NATO foreign ministers meeting.

‘GRAVE ERROR’

Representative Eliot Engel, the senior Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, said that Tillerson was making a mistake by skipping the Brussels talks.

“Donald Trump’s Administration is making a grave error that will shake the confidence of America’s most important alliance and feed the concern that this Administration simply too cozy with (Russian President) Vladimir Putin,” Engel said in a written statement.

“I cannot fathom why the Administration would pursue this course except to signal a change in American foreign policy that draws our country away from western democracy’s most important institutions and aligns the United States more closely with the autocratic regime in the Kremlin,” he added.

A former U.S. official echoed the view.

“It feeds this narrative that somehow the Trump administration is playing footsie with Russia,” said the former U.S. official on condition of anonymity.

“You don’t want to do your early business with the world’s great autocrats. You want to start with the great democracies, and NATO is the security instrument of the transatlantic group of great democracies,” he added.

Any Russian visit by a senior Trump administration official may be carefully scrutinized after the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday publicly confirmed his agency was investigating any collusion between the Russian government and Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign.

Trump has already worried NATO allies by referring to the Western security alliance as “obsolete” and by pressing other members to meet their commitments to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.

Last week, he dismayed British officials by shrugging off a media report, forcefully denied by Britain, that the administration of former President Barack Obama tapped his phones during the 2016 White House race with the aid of Britain’s GCHQ spy agency.

A former U.S. official and a former NATO diplomat, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said the alliance offered to change the meeting dates so Tillerson could attend it and the Xi Jinping talks but the State Department had rebuffed the idea.

The former diplomat said it was vital to present a united front toward Moscow. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 to serve as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.

“Given the challenge that Russia poses, not just to the United States but to Europe, it’s critical to engage on the basis of a united front if at all possible,” the diplomat said.

(Additional Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Lisa Shumaker & Simon Cameron-Moore)

U.S. appeals to higher court over ruling against Trump’s revised travel ban

Demonstrators rally against the Trump administration's new ban against travelers from six Muslim-majority nations, outside of the White House. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Mica Rosenberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. government took the legal battle over President Donald Trump’s travel ban to a higher court on Friday, saying it would appeal against a federal judge’s decision that struck down parts of the ban on the day it was set to go into effect.

The Department of Justice said in a court filing it would appeal against a ruling by U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia.

On Thursday, Chuang issued an emergency halt to the portion of Trump’s March 6 executive order temporarily banning the entry of travelers from six Muslim-majority countries. He left in place the section of the order that barred the entry of refugees to the United States for four months.

Another federal judge in Hawaii struck down both sections of the ban in a broader court ruling that prevented Trump’s order from moving forward.

In Washington state, where the ban is also being challenged, U.S. District Court Judge James Robart put a stay on proceedings for as long as the Hawaii court’s nationwide temporary restraining order remained in place, to “conserve resources” and avoid inconsistent and duplicate rulings.

The decisions came in response to lawsuits brought by states’ attorneys general in Hawaii and refugee resettlement agencies in Maryland who were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center.

Detractors argue the ban discriminated against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom. Trump says the measure is necessary for national security to protect the country from terrorist attacks.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told a media briefing the government would “vigorously defend this executive order” and appeal against the “flawed rulings.”

The Department of Justice filed a motion late on Friday night seeking clarification of Hawaii’s ruling before appealing to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

The 9th Circuit court last month upheld a decision by Judge Robart that halted an original, more sweeping travel ban signed by the President on Jan. 27 in response to a lawsuit filed by Washington state.

The new executive order was reissued with the intention of overcoming the legal concerns.

Trump has vowed to take the fight all the way to U.S. Supreme Court.

The 4th Circuit is known as a more conservative court compared to the 9th Circuit, said Buzz Frahn, an attorney at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett who has been tracking the litigation nationwide.

“The government is probably thinking that the 4th Circuit … would lend a friendlier ear to its arguments,” he said.

Judges have said they were willing to look behind the text of the order, which does not mention Islam, to probe the motivation for enacting the ban, Frahn said. Trump promised during the election campaign to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently split 4-4 between liberals and conservatives, with Trump’s pick for the high court – appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch – still awaiting confirmation.

Hans von Spakovsky, from the Washington D.C.-based Heritage Foundation, said the Department of Justice might want to time their appeals to reach the Supreme Court after Gorsuch is confirmed. He said the court would be likely to hear the case.

“They will take it because of its national importance,” Spakovsky said.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additional reporting by Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Sue Horton, Mary Milliken and Paul Tait)