The chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security apologized on Sunday for saying it was “right” for President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily banning people from seven predominantly Muslim countries to affect U.S. residents with green cards.
“I do not believe it is right to ban green card holders from entering the United States absent evidence of a threat, regardless of where they are from,” Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) wrote in a statement posted on Facebook. “I misspoke and I apologize for the confusion.”
Sensenbrenne also read the statement aloud at a town hall meeting on Sunday night in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, according to a report by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
At a town hall meeting on Saturday, a constituent asked Sensenbrenner whether he thought it was “right” that green card holders were affected by the ban.
Sensenbrenner replied that the order was legal.
“I’ll say yeah, it’s right,” he said when pressed for a more specific answer, as quoted in the report.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Gen. John Kelly issued a statement on Sunday declaring that Trump’s travel ban would not apply to green card holders, following confusion over the order’s impact on those granted legal permanent resident status.