Trump travel ban barring citizens from 12 countries goes into effect
Donald Trump's new ban on travel to the US by citizens of a dozen countries, mainly in Africa and the Middle East, went into effect at 12am ET on Monday, more than eight years after Trump's first travel ban sparked chaos, confusion, and months of legal battles.
The new proclamation, which Trump signed last week, 'fully' restricts the nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the US. The entry of nationals of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be partially restricted.
Unlike Trump's first travel ban in 2017, which initially targeted citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries and was criticized as an unconstitutional 'Muslim ban', the new ban is broader, and legal experts said they expect it to withstand legal challenges.
The announcement of the new travel ban was greeted with less outrage and protest than his initial 2017 ban. On Monday, the new ban appeared to be overshadowed by Trump's other immigration battles, including furious protests in Los Angeles over Trump's deportation raids, which were followed by Trump deploying the national guard to the city despite the opposition of California's governor.
The newly instituted ban notably includes citizens of Haiti, a majority Christian country. Haitians in the US were demonized by Trump during his presidential campaign, with the president spreading the baseless conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating people's pets.
It also imposes heightened travel restrictions on citizens of Venezuela, who have been targeted repeatedly by the White House in recent months, as the Trump administration's sudden deportation of Venezuelans in the US to a notorious prison in El Salvador sparked a massive legal battle.
The ban is also expected to have a disproportionate effect on African countries, with some citizens of targeted countries worrying about being cut off from opportunities for education, professional development, and networking.
Mikhail Nyamweya, a political and foreign affairs analyst, previously told the Guardian that the new travel bans and restrictions would 'bring about a pattern of exclusion' and 'may also institutionalise a perception of Africans as outsiders in the global order'.
'This policy is not about national security – it is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the United States,' Abby Maxman, president of Oxfam America, a nonprofit international relief organization, said.
While five of the countries on the new ban list are not majority-Muslim, including Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea, as well as Haiti, the list does target citizens of non-white countries in the developing world, fueling criticisms that the ban is fundamentally racist and shaped by 'bigotry'.
Trump's first travel ban, in 2017, was widely criticized as a fulfillment of Trump's campaign pledge to institute 'a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States'. The Trump administration later added citizens of other non-Muslim countries to the banned list.
The new ban does not revoke visas previously issued to people from countries on the list, according to guidance issued Friday to all US diplomatic missions. However, unless an applicant meets narrow criteria for an exemption to the ban, his or her application will be rejected starting Monday. Travelers with previously issued visas should still be able to enter the US even after the ban takes effect.
In a video posted Wednesday on social media, Trump said nationals of countries included in the ban pose 'terrorism-related' and 'public-safety' risks, as well as risks of overstaying their visas. He also said some of these countries had 'deficient' screening and vetting or have historically refused to take back their citizens.
Trump also tied the new ban to a recent attack in Boulder, Colorado that wounded a dozen people, saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. US officials say the alleged perpetrator overstayed a tourist visa. The man charged in the attack is from Egypt, a country that is not on Trump's restricted list.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
37 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Federal judge rules that Trump administration can no longer detain Mahmoud Khalil
A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration can no longer detain Columbia University graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil. In his order on Wednesday, Judge Michael E Farbiarz said that the ruling will go into effect at 9.30am on Friday, adding: 'This is to allow the respondents to seek appellate review should they wish to.' Khalil has been held in a detention facility in Louisiana since March. Earlier this month, he described the pain of missing the birth of his first child while being detained, saying: 'When I heard my son's first cries, I buried my face in my arms so no one would see me weep.' This story will be updated …
The Sun
38 minutes ago
- The Sun
Trump doesn't rule out arresting California Gov Gavin Newsom over LA riot chaos and says he had to save city from mob
DONALD Trump refused to rule out arresting California Governor Gavin Newsom over his handling of the Los Angeles riots. The pair have been trading blows since Newsom slammed Trump's decision to send federal troops into the city to quell immigration raid rioters. 8 8 8 8 Trump has sent around 4,000 of the National Guard and 700 Marines into LA, where they have clashed violently with protesting mobs and been given to make arrests The Governor accused Trump of manufacturing the flare-ups, saying his actions were "akin to authoritarian regimes" - and was dismissed as "incompetent" in return. He vowed his state is "suing Donald Trump" for "creating fear and terror to [...] violate the US constitution". Trump has previously toyed with the idea of arresting Newsom, and refused to rule it out in an interview with the New York Pos t. Trump's border czar Tom Homan had warned that anyone, including public officials, would be arrested if they obstructed federal law enforcement. On Sunday, Newsom goaded Trump over the threats, saying in a MSNBC interview: "Come after me, arrest me. Let's just get it over with, tough guy." Asked directly if he is going to arrest and charge Gavin Newsom, Trump said: "Well, he's not doing a good job. "In theory you could, I guess. It's almost like a dissipation of duties. Nobody's ever seen anything like it." Before Wednesday's interview, Newsom shared his thoughts on the arrest threats. He said: "The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. Anti-ICE raid protest carnage spreads across US as Texas deploys National Guard & LA declares curfew after riots "This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism." Trump follow up with a brutal takedown of Newsom's record in office - which included blaming him for the devastating wild fires that ravaged parts of LA in January. Trump said: "First he had his wildfires that burned down half the place [...] I told them water, get the water from the pacific north west [...] I got the water to go down. "They were using environmental as a reason not to give water. They were protecting a certain type of fish - which by the way has not done well. "He should have done it [redirected the water supply] in my first term. You wouldn't have had the fires." 8 8 8 Interviewer Miranda Devine then asked about a much-disputed phone call between Trump and Newsom - with each swearing to a different version of events. The President claimed he rang to discuss sending in National Guardsmen - but Newsom branded him a "stone-cold liar". Newsom insists he "kept trying to bring up" the situation in LA, but that Trump veered onto other subjects. However, Trump doubled down today and said: "Of course I did [talk about it]. The phone call was to deploy the troops. "I said: 'You're city is burning down, your state is in bad trouble.' "All I want is him to do a good job [...] he's doing a poor job." In an effort to checkmate Newsom, Trump brandished a screenshot showing a 16-minute call between the two at 1:23am on June 7. Newsom does not dispute that the call happened - but maintains that Trump "never once brought up the National Guard". Trump landed other personal jibes, mocking the California High-Speed Rail project which has run over budget and claiming that, without him, Newsom "wouldn't have LA". He said: "Between the fires and the riots, there would be nothing left. You have a governor that's incompetent, a mayor that's highly incompetent." 8
The Independent
42 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump's plan to begin 'phasing out' FEMA after hurricane season burdens states, experts warn
President Donald Trump 's plan to begin 'phasing out' the federal agency that responds to disasters after the 2025 hurricane season is likely to put more responsibilities on states to provide services following increasingly frequent and expensive climate disasters, experts said. 'We want to wean off of FEMA and we want to bring it down to the state level,' Trump said Tuesday in an Oval Office appearance with administration officials about preparations for summer wildfires. Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have repeatedly signaled their desire to overhaul, if not completely eliminate, the 46-year-old Federal Emergency Management Agency. While there has been bipartisan support for reforming the agency, experts say dismantling it completely would leave gaps in crucial services and funding. 'It just causes more concern on how states should be planning for the future if the federal government's not going to be there for them,' said Michael Coen, FEMA chief of staff during the Obama and Biden administrations. Disaster response is already locally led and state-managed, but FEMA supports by coordinating resources from federal agencies, providing direct assistance programs for households and moving money to states for repairing public infrastructure. Trump said Tuesday he wants to 'give out less money,' and to 'give it out directly,' sidestepping FEMA programs. He said he did not know who would distribute the funds, saying they could come 'from the president's office' or DHS. 'I was left with the impression that he doesn't really understand the scale of what FEMA manages on a yearly basis with a budget of over $30 billion,' said Coen. Dismantling FEMA, or even changing how much of the costs it shares with states in the event of a major disaster declaration, would require action from Congress, including amending the 1988 Stafford Act, which outlines FEMA's roles and responsibilities and the cost share between the feds and the states. Declaring fewer major disasters or giving less federal support could put an untenable financial burden on states, said Sara McTarnaghan, principal research associate at the Urban Institute. 'Very few of them would have had enough funds set aside to anticipate the federal government stepping back from its historic role in disaster recovery for major events,' McTarnaghan said. A recent Urban Institute analysis found that between 2008-2024, quadrupling the economic threshold of when major disasters are declared would have shifted $41 billion in public assistance costs alone to state and local governments. 'I think the trade off for states and communities is going to be, do we accept a less full recovery or do states draw on other resources to meet these goals and needs, perhaps at the cost of investments in other kinds of social programs or functions of the state,' said McTarnaghan. Not all states will be able to generate much more revenue, she added. 'The confluence of states that have really high disaster exposure and states that have relatively limited fiscal capacity are overlapping in many ways,' she said. 'That's the case for a lot of states along the Gulf Coast that we're concerned about going into hurricane season but also the case for some Midwestern states that face issues with severe convective storms.' Trump dismissed the idea that states can't handle the bulk of disasters on their own. 'The governor should be able to handle it and frankly if they can't handle the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn't be governor,' he said. He suggested that some of the gaps could be filled by more collaboration among states. Noem said FEMA is building communication and mutual aid agreements among states 'to respond to each other so that they can stand on their own two feet.' A national mutual-aid structure called the Emergency Management Assistance Compact already exists, but its operations are typically reimbursed by the federal government, said Coen. 'There's already robust communication between states. The confusion is what they can expect from the federal government.' Regarding the current hurricane season, which began June 1, Noem said FEMA 'stands prepared.' But there have already been changes to how the agency operates. It suspended its door-to-door canvassing program that helped enroll survivors for assistance. More than 2,000 FEMA staff, around one-third of the full-time workforce, have left or been fired since January. After severe weather this spring, some states waited as long as eight weeks for their disaster declaration requests, and several requests are still pending. Trump has not approved any requests for hazard mitigation assistance since February, a typical add-on to individual and public assistance that helps states build back in more resilient ways. A FEMA review council established by Trump and co-chaired by Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will submit suggestions for reforms in the next few months, according to Noem. In its first meeting in May, Noem told the group of governors, emergency managers, and other officials primarily from Republican states that Trump is seeking drastic change. 'I don't want you to go into this thinking we're going to make a little tweak here,' she said. 'No, FEMA should no longer exist as it is.' ___
