State Department Reverses Visa Cancellations, Previously Banned Travelers Can Enter U.S.

The State Department has reversed the cancellations of visas for nationals from seven majority Muslim countries after a federal judge in Washington put President Trump's executive order on immigration and refugees on hold nationwide, major news outlets, including The Associated Press and the Washington Post, reported Saturday.

According to the AP, the department has said that for now people covered by the order who hold valid visas may travel to the United States.

On Friday, the government revealed that tens of thousands of people had their visas revoked due to the immigration order that temporarily suspends the entry of nationals from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Sudan. Officials have gone back and forth about whether the immigration order is a "ban," with the president himself tweeting that people could call it what they want because the aim is to keep "bad" people with "bad" intentions out of the country.

An attorney for the Department of Justice told a Virginia courtroom on Friday that more than 100,000 visas had been revoked as a result of the executive order. That number was revealed during a hearing about a lawsuit brought by two Yemeni brothers who arrived at Dulles Airport in Virginia and were put on a return flight to Ethiopia.

The State Department later walked back that figure, saying fewer than 60,000 people had their visas "provisionally revoked."

"To put that number in context, we issued over 11 million immigrant and non-immigrant visas in fiscal year 2015," a department statement to NBC News said. "As always, national security is our top priority when issuing visas."

This report will be updated.

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