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Grandparents are now “bona fide” relatives under Trump's travel ban

The Trump administration keeps changing its policy on who can and can’t come to the U.S. under its blanket ban on refugees and travelers from six Muslim-majority countries.

The Trump administration is once again changing its policy on who can and can’t come to the U.S. under its blanket ban on refugees and travelers from six Muslim-majority countries.

This time, the government broadened which close family members of lawful residents can enter the country, according to a memo from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent to all diplomatic posts abroad and seen by Reuters. Now, “grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, and cousins” are eligible to bypass the ban and receive visas.

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“We regularly provide updated operational instructions to our embassies and consulates around the world to ensure that our consular officers are using the most up-to-date vetting procedures as they adjudicate visas,” an unnamed State Department official told Reuters.

The administration’s apparent change of heart comes just days after a federal judge in Hawaii temporarily halted the Department of Homeland Security from barring grandparents and other relatives from the U.S.

“Indeed, grandparents are the epitome of close family members. The Government’s definition excludes them. That simply cannot be,” Judge Derrick Watson wrote in his decision on July 14. He also called the original policy the “antithesis of common sense.”

When the Supreme Court ruled to allow the Trump administration to enforce its travel ban last month, the justices left an exception for people with a “bona fide relationship” with a person or entity in the U.S.

But the Trump administration got to decide what that relationship meant exactly. It excluded grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, fiancees, and other extended family members.