(SF Chronicle) Upon taking office, President Biden immediately withdrew Donald Trump’s ban on U.S. entry of anyone from a group of mostly Muslim countries. But Biden hasn’t done much for tens of thousands who applied for visa waivers under former President Trump’s program and were denied, and a federal judge in San Francisco says it’s time to act.
Trump’s order, which took effect in December 2017 and was upheld by the Supreme Court in June 2018, purportedly allowed residents of the affected countries to seek admission in order to rejoin close family members or to meet business and professional obligations if they could show that their exclusion was causing “undue hardship” and their entry was in the national interest. But immigrant advocates say the Trump administration granted fewer than one-third of the requests for visa waivers, and most of those denied entry are still waiting.
