Trump bans citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States

WashingtonAs he did during his first presidency, Donald Trump signed an executive order early this morning banning entry into the US for citizens of 12 countries, in addition to imposing restrictions on seven other states. "I have decided to completely restrict and limit the entry of citizens of the following 12 countries: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen," Trump wrote. "I have decided to restrict: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela."

Shortly after announcing the ban, the White House released a pre-recorded video in which Trump justifies the announcement with last weekend's attack in Boulder, Colorado. The president asserts that the attack on a pro-Israel event by a man with an expired tourist visa "underscores the extreme dangers posed to the country by the entry of foreign nationals who have not been properly vetted, as well as those who arrive as temporary visitors and overstay their visas." "We don't want them," he adds. Trump also has exploited the attack to defend its deportation campaign.

Regarding the restrictions on Venezuelan citizens, the Trump administration has recently also been revoking protected status (TPS) for 350,000 Venezuelans in the United States. In a ruling at the end of May, the Supreme Court sided with the US government in the decision to suspend TPS, which the Joe Biden administration first approved in 2021.

The restrictions against Venezuelans come amid the aggressive deportation campaign, for which they are in the El Salvador mega-prison on accusations of belonging to the criminal gang El Tren de Aragua. The Venezuelans in question were expelled from the US under the Foreign Enemies Act and did not have access to a judicial process in which the administration could prove the accusation.

Although Trump has tried to justify it with the Boulder attack, the new travel ban (travel ban) was expected from the moment the Republican was sworn in as president. In one of the first executive orders he signed on January 20—the same day he took office—he laid the groundwork for this new ban. In the order "Protect the United States from foreign terrorists and other threats to national security and public safety" established a section ordering all federal agencies to "identify countries around the world for which verification and control information is so deficient that it justifies a partial or total suspension of the admission of citizens from these countries."

During his previous term, Trump carried out one of the harshest policies against people Muslim side. It was a series of executive orders that banned travel to the United States for 90 days from seven Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) and suspended the resettlement of all Syrian refugees.

Beyond repeating the Muslim-majority countries, it is noteworthy that it incorporates new ones, such as Haiti. During the election campaign, Trump increased attacks against Haitian migrants, echoing the fake news who claimed without evidence that cats and dogs were being eaten in Springfield, Ohio.

The order falsely claims that "hundreds of thousands of illegal Haitian aliens flooded the United States during the Biden administration" and that this "influx is harming American communities." In reality, some 200,000 Haitians have received TPS—like Venezuelans—which grants legal residency permits to foreign nationals who cannot safely return to their home country due to the conditions there. In other words, the Haitians vilified by Trump and Vance last year were legal residents of the Ohio town.

The entry ban on Afghans is also notable because the vast majority of people from Afghanistan who have come to the US in recent years have done so as refugees after US troops withdrew from the country and the Taliban retook control.

Last month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also announced the termination of TPS for Afghan citizens. The reasoning, according to Noem, was that "Afghanistan has experienced an improving security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevents its citizens from returning to their home country." The arguments for denying TPS to Afghans contradict those now presented by Trump to ban them from entering. "The Taliban, a designated Specially Designated Global Terrorist Group (SDGT), controls Afghanistan. Afghanistan has no competent or cooperative central authority to issue passports or civil documents, and does not have adequate screening and verification measures," the order states.