However, a senior administration official said yesterday that, yes, green card holders from the seven named countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) would need to check with a US consulate to learn whether they could return to their homes in the US, as their entry would be considered on an individual basis.
"It's being cleared on a case-by-case basis and being moved expeditiously," the official told Reuters.
This morning, Priebus added to the confusion.
"As far as green card holders moving forward, it doesn't affect them," Priebus told NBC's "Meet The Press," adding that the administration had not overruled the Department of Homeland Security's recommendation that green card holders be excluded from the new rules.
"But here's the deal, if you're coming in and out of one of those seven countries… then you're going to be subjected temporarily with more questioning until a better program is put in place over the next several months," he said.
Asked to confirm whether it would actually not impact green card holders from the seven countries, he said, "Well, of course it does."
Priebus "clarified" that individuals "traveling back and forth" from those seven countries would be "subjected to further screening," and that he even US citizens traveling to and from the seven countries should expect to be pulled aside for further questioning.
Asked whether that constituted "affecting" or "not affecting" green card holders, Priebus said, "The executive order doesn't affect green card holders moving forward. I said that. But what I'm suggesting to you is that Customs and Border Patrol… if they have a person that's traveling back and forth to Libya or Somalia or Yemen, I would suspect within their discretion, they might ask a few more questions [at airports] when someone's coming back and forth within their discretionary authority as a customs and border patrol agent."
So, according to the White House chief of staff, green card holders, who have already gone through a strict vetting process to even be issued the precious document, are not officially required to be stopped and prevented from entering. But border control officials should harass them? But it's not in the order.
"There's discretionary authority that a customs and border patrol agent has when they suspect that someone is up to no good that's traveling back and forth to Libya or Yemen. And I'm not suggesting it's in the order. I'm suggesting that at every level in an airport a customs and border patrol agent has the authority to use their discretion to ask questions. That's all we're talking about. We're off on a tangent that has nothing to do with the executive order."
He also said that other countries, Saudi Arabia among them, could be added to the travel ban.
Referring to the chaotic scenes at airports, yesterday, Priebus was asked whether a grace period on enforcing the ban might have been helpful.
"I don't think you want to have a grace period, Chuck, because then people that want to do bad things to Americans just move up their travel dates," he said.
He also said the administration had been working with DHS and US Customs and Border Protection for some time before the order was signed, and that the agencies were quite prepared.
"And so it wasn't chaos," he said. Priebus said 325,000 people from foreign countries came into the US yesterday, and 109 people were detained briefly.
"Most of those people were moved out. We've got a couple dozen more that remain. And I would suspect as long as they're not awful people that they will move through before another half a day today. And perhaps some of these people should be detained further. And if they're folks that shouldn't be in this country they're going to be detained. And so apologize for nothing here."
He also claimed "75% to 80% of Americans" agree with the ban, a statistic that seems inconsistent with the thousands of demonstrators who showed up at US airports yesterday to protest the new regulations and the protests already underway today.
US Senator John McCain is among the many, many other Americans still confused as to what the new bans actually mean.
"It's been a very confusing process," the Republican Senator told CBS. He suggested that the new order will probably help Daesh develop "more propaganda" and wondered why Iraq, where US forces are fighting alongside Iraqi forces to oust the terrorist group, is included in the ban.
The DHS issued a press release on the ban January 29, in which it said it would continue to enforce all presidential executive orders.
"Approximately 80 million international travelers enter the United States every year," the DHS reported. "Yesterday, less than one percent of the more than 325,000 international air travelers who arrive every day were inconvenienced while enhanced security measures were implemented. These individuals went through enhanced security screenings and are being processed for entry to the United States, consistent with our immigration laws and judicial orders."
