U.S. President Donald Trump signed a travel ban on Wednesday targeting 12 countries, including seven African states.KENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty Images
U.S. President Donald Trump is casting a sweeping ban on citizens from 12 countries, and tight restrictions on nationals from seven others, as an extension of his program of mass deportations and the locking down of U.S. borders, saying the latest measures will “keep bad people out of our country.”
The move, however, will further bar the door to people fleeing political repression and humanitarian crises, and promises to upend relations with countries around the world.
The executive order, signed by Mr. Trump on Wednesday evening to take effect Monday, is framed in national security terms: The countries affected, it says, do not properly vet people going to the United States.
Trump issues travel ban for a dozen countries set to go into effect Monday
On Thursday, the President tied it to his broader immigration policy of kicking out anyone without legal status and ending programs for asylum seekers to enter legally.
“We’re moving them out very strongly. But it can’t come fast enough. We want to get them out, we want to get them out now,” Mr. Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “We don’t want to have other bad people coming into our country.”
He added that the U.S. has “thousands of murderers.” There is no evidence that immigrants are more prone to commit violent crimes than native-born Americans.
U.S. President Donald Trump resurrected a policy of his first term on Wednesday, banning the citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States. Citizens of seven other countries will be partially restricted.
The Associated Press
The ban prohibits entry to the U.S., whether as immigrants or visitors, for citizens of 12 countries: Afghanistan, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
It also bars specific visas for people from seven other countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
There are some exemptions in both groups for people with green cards, current visas and a few specific situations, such as members of World Cup and Olympic teams.
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The measure expands on a string of travel bans Mr. Trump signed during his first term. Early versions of those measures targeted people from majority-Muslim countries and were overturned by the courts. A revised version of the ban eventually passed legal muster and remained in place until it was removed by then-president Joe Biden in 2021.
The current ban, which the Trump administration has been working on since January, leans heavily on security rationale in a bid to survive court challenges.
Trump is again banning people from countries his administration deems dangerous from coming to the United States.
The Associated Press
Virginia Senator Tim Kaine said the policy was still motivated by anti-Muslim animus and vowed it would face legal challenges. “Thomas Jefferson himself said we do not prefer or punish people in this country because of how they worship or whether or not they choose to worship,” the Democrat said in a statement.
For those looking to the U.S. as a safe haven from violence, the news hit hard.
A cyclist passes in front of the former U.S. embassy in Kabul on Thursday.Ebrahim Noroozi/The Associated Press
An Afghan journalist in Pakistan, who has worked for local and international media organizations, said thousands of Afghans like him currently stuck in exile will be affected. The Globe and Mail is not naming him because he fears for his safety.
The journalist said he and his young family have been waiting in limbo for more than three years and had completed the steps necessary to travel to the U.S. under a program for journalists, women’s rights activists and others feeling the Taliban. That program was cancelled in January and Mr. Trump’s latest move bars the door even more tightly.
The homes of fellow refugees have been raided by Pakistani police, the journalist said, and he fears that if he is deported back to Afghanistan, he would be in danger from the Taliban because he worked on news programs that promoted women’s rights.
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The African Union Commission voiced alarm at Mr. Trump’s announcement. It said it was “concerned about the potential negative impact of such measures on people-to-people ties, educational exchange, commercial engagement, and the broader diplomatic relations that have been carefully nurtured over decades.”
The President of Chad, Mahamat Déby, said he had ordered his government to retaliate by suspending the issuing of visas for U.S. citizens. “Chad has no planes to offer, no billions of dollars to give, but Chad has its dignity and pride,” he wrote on social media.
Refugees International, a U.S.-based humanitarian group, said the ban is “deeply inhumane and discriminatory.” It said the ban will disproportionately hurt people in the greatest need of protection. “This new policy is cruel, inconsistent, and nonsensical,” the group said in a statement on Thursday.
Lindsay Aimé, who works for a community group helping Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, said it’s perilous for people to return to Haiti: Much of the country is controlled by armed gangs that chase people from their homes and have shut down hospitals and schools.
“Any country that says it is a friend to Haiti, they need to open their arms,” said Mr. Aimé of the Haitian Community Help and Support Center. “Nobody is safe in Haiti.”
Mr. Trump is also ending temporary protected status for Haitians, Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans, potentially taking away legal status from hundreds of thousands of people.
Andreina Ramos, a Venezuelan asylum-seeker in Georgia, said she had to flee her home country two years ago after repeated threats from President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime. A television reporter, she said she was threatened with prison for airing stories critical of the government.
“We cannot return to Venezuela, because returning to Venezuela means ending up in prison for being a dissident opposing the Maduro regime,” said Ms. Ramos, who came to the U.S. with her husband and young son.
The travel ban, meanwhile, now means that their family members in Venezuela can’t come to visit them in the U.S.
Adelys Ferro, a Venezuelan community activist in Florida, described Mr. Trump’s ban as “a racist, xenophobic, and deeply un-American attack on human rights.”
“It’s not about public safety. It’s not about law and order. It is, very simply, about keeping Black and brown immigrants out of the United States,” she wrote on Substack.
In signing the order, Mr. Trump cited the suspect in the Boulder, Colo., anti-Semitic attack, an Egyptian national. But the President did not put Egypt on the ban list. Asked why, he said: “They have things under control.”