DHS Secretary John Kelly reportedly refused to comply with Stephen Bannon's plan for green card holders

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly (C) talks with White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon (R)

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

last updated 4 February 2017

After President Trump issued his executive order suspending all U.S. entrance from seven majority-Muslim nations, Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary John Kelly resolved some of the ensuing confusion by ordering "the entry of lawful permanent residents to be in the national interest," which means that green card holders from the seven countries would be given a waiver and admitted absent "significant derogatory information indicating a serious threat to public safety and welfare."

On Saturday, a Washington Post article chronicling the Trump administration's internal machinations over the executive order — which is currently under temporary suspension thanks to the ruling of a federal judge in Seattle — shared a report suggesting Kelly's green card waiver came in defiance of a demand from Trump consigliere Stephen Bannon:

White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon wanted to stop Kelly in his tracks. Bannon paid a personal and unscheduled visit to Kelly's Department of Homeland Security office to deliver an order: Don't issue the waiver. Kelly, according to two administration officials familiar with the confrontation, refused to comply with Bannon's instruction. That was the beginning of a weekend of negotiations among senior Trump administration staffers that led, on Sunday, to a decision by Trump to temporarily freeze the issuance of executive orders. [The Washington Post]

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.