On Thursday afternoon, after pressure from a Yale Law School team, a federal judge extended a court order prohibiting the United States government from deporting individuals based on President Donald Trump’s executive order banning citizens of seven Middle Eastern countries from entering the country.

The court order, which will now be in effect through at least Feb. 21, was first granted on Jan. 28 by a judge in Brooklyn as a result of efforts by the Law School’s Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, along with a coalition of other prominent civil rights groups. According to a press release from the Law School, the stay was the first in a series of legal victories against Trump’s executive order in courts throughout the country as immigrants and advocacy groups continued to challenge the order.

On Thursday morning, the Office of the New York State Attorney General intervened in Darweesh vs. Trump, the case that originally gave rise to the stay. It cited “immediate and serious harm to the people of the State of New York,” including “harms to families, harms to educational institutions and students, hindrances to the provision of healthcare and life-saving medical research, adverse effects on the financial sector, and other economic disruptions,” according to a Law School press release.

The petitioners in the case, Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, were detained on Jan. 27 following their arrival from Iran at John F. Kennedy Airport. According to court records, both were travelling with valid documentation and had previously been approved for entry to the U.S.

Students and faculty in the WIRAC law clinic worked non-stop last weekend to obtain emergency stay for their clients, arguing that execution of Trump’s order would violate the due process clause in the Constitution.

“We are heartened by the show of support from the State of New York and those who are following this case around the country,” said Natalia Nazarewicz LAW ’18, an intern at the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at the Law School, in the press release. “The people are speaking loud and clear in demanding that this discriminatory ban end.”

Darweesh vs. Trump is co-counseled by WIRAC, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center, the International Refugee Assistance Project and Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP.

NATALIE WRIGHT