U.S. appeals court rules against broad interpretation of Trump’s travel ban

NEW YORK - A U.S. appeals court on Thursday ruled against President Donald Trump's effort to broadly enforce a temporary travel and refugee ban on people from certain Muslim-majority countries that the Republican president said was necessary for national security.

A three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said that the government did not persuasively explain why the travel ban should be enforced against grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins from the six countries.

In the latest legal back and forth over the President's controversial executive order, the court also said that refugee resettlement agencies have a 'bona fide” relationship with refugees, which under a standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court, should allow them into the United States.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg and Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Grant McCool)