A judge has ruled that the President Trump’s travel ban must be relaxed to include wider members of family.
The ban on travellers from six mainly Muslim countries and on refugees did not count grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and cousins as ‘bona fide’ family members.
But an order by District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii ordered that these family ties should now be accepted, arguing that the ban had interpreted a Supreme Court ruling too narrowly.
“Common sense, for instance, dictates that close family members be defined to include grandparents. Indeed, grandparents are the epitome of close family members”, he wrote.
The Supreme Court is still considering the current version of the ban, which includes travel to the US from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
It allowed a temporary ban to come into effect in June, pending a full judgement in October.
