State Dept: Fewer than 60,000 visas canceled by Trump order

President Donald Trump waves as he walks from Marine One to Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Friday, Feb. 3, 2017. Trump is heading to Florida to spend the weekend at Mar-a-Lago.

WASHINGTON  — Up to 60,000 foreigners from seven majority-Muslim countries had their visas canceled after President Donald Trump's executive order blocked them from traveling to the U.S., the State Department said Friday.

That figure contradicts a Justice Department lawyer's statement Friday during a court hearing in Virginia about the ban. The lawyer in that case said that about 100,000 visas had been revoked.

The State Department clarified that the higher figure includes diplomatic and other visas that were actually exempted from the travel ban, as well as expired visas.

Trump's order, issued last week, temporarily bans travel for people from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya and Yemen. It also temporarily halts the U.S. refugee program.

In Seattle Friday, a U.S. judge temporarily blocked Trump's ban on people from the seven countries after Washington state and Minnesota urged a nationwide hold on the executive order.

The Virginia hearing was focused on the state's efforts to join a legal challenge from legal permanent residents. Erez Reuveni, a lawyer with the Justice Department's Office of Immigration Litigation, urged U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema to keep the lawsuit focused only on lawful permanent residents, who were the subject of the initial lawsuit. Virginia sought to intervene in the case and expand it to include other people traveling to the U.S. on visas.