According to a government lawyer appearing in a Virginia courtroom Friday, more than 100,000 visas have been revoked in the week since President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily banning travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.
CNN reported the figure comes from the Office of Immigration Litigation within the Civil Division of the Justice Department's Erez Reuveni, who was asked by a U.S. District Court Judge.
However, the State Department disputed Reuveni's number, telling CNN that fewer than 60,000 visas have been provisionally revoked since Jan. 27. According to USA Today, the State Department said Reuveni's figure includes diplomatic and other categories of visas that were exempted by the travel ban in addition to expired visas.
"We recognize that those individuals are temporarily inconvenienced while we conduct our review under the Executive Order. To put that number in context, we issued over 11 million immigrant and non-immigrant visas in fiscal year 2015," the Department of State's Bureau of Consular Affairs spokesman Kevin Brosnahan told CNN.
Still, U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema encouraged the government to work harder to resolve the issues resulting from last month's executive order.
"Without any kind of fact-finding or hard evidence of a need to rescind these (visa) decisions, human beings relied on these decisions," Brinkema said during Friday's court hearing regarding two Yemeni brothers who were denied entry into the U.S. after arriving at Virginia's Washington Dulles International Airport via CNN.
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"I hope the government gives serious thought about how to address these issues."
Brinkema extended her previous temporary restraining order against removing lawful permanent residents until Feb. 10. According to Reuveni, no returning legal permanent residents have been denied entry at Dulles Airport.
"President Trump's unlawful, unconstitutional, and un-American immigration ban is causing real harm as we speak to Virginia families, students, businesses, and our colleges and universities," said Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring via USA Today. "Right now we're working to make sure we get any affected students back into the country, but one-time fixes don't address the underlying problems with this ban."
Herring plans to argue for an injunction against Trump's order at a Feb. 10 hearing.
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