Travel banMore than 100,000 visas revoked under travel ban: Justice Dept.

A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer said that more than 100,000 visas have been revoked from travelers heading to the United States as a result of Donald Trump’s travel ban.

USA Today reports that the number was revealed during a Virginia court hearing for a lawsuit filed by two Yemeni brothers who had flown in to Dulles International Airport last Friday and were quickly put on a return flight to Ethiopia.

“The gasp was audible in the room,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg of the Legal Aid Justice Center, who represents the brothers, said.

The State Department issued a statement later, saying the number of provisionally cancelled visas was fewer than 60,000.

The State Department noted that the higher number from the Justice Department included diplomatic and other visas that were actually exempt from the travel ban, as well as expired visas.

It is not yet clear who has been affected or what countries they came from, Sandoval-Moshenberg said, adding that the thousands of revoked documents includes immigrant and non-immigrant visas.

“I think this number is going up daily. We know someone in Iran who had an appointment at the U.S. Embassy tomorrow to get his visa and it’s been cancelled,” he said.

His clients, brothers Tareq and Ammar Aqel Mohammed Aziz, have agreed a deal with the government to come back to the United States.

Erez Reuveni of the Office of Immigration Litigation at the Civil Division of the Justice Department, stressed that no returning legal permanent residents have been denied entry, and it is not clear whether the 100,000 number includes refugees, which are the smallest category of people affected.

The executive order, signed by President Trump last Friday, indefinitely suspended Syrian refugees, and barred nearly all travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries - Iran, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Libya and Sudan - for 90 days and blocked refugees for 120 days.