Trump's new travel ban on citizens from 12 nations takes effect

Australia Broadcast Center

3 days ago

US President Donald Trump's new travel ban on citizens from 12 countries came into effect on Monday amid the president's escalating campaign of immigration enforcement.
The new proclamation, which Mr Trump signed last week, applies to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
The ban also imposes heightened restrictions on people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela who are outside the US and don't hold a valid visa.
According to guidance issued Friday to all US diplomatic missions, the Trump administration does not revoke visas previously issued to people from countries on the list.
However, unless an applicant meets the narrow criteria for an exemption to the ban, their application will be rejected, starting Monday.
Travellers with previously issued visas are able to enter the US even after the ban takes effect.
During his first term, Mr Trump issued a hastily written executive order denying entry to citizens of mainly Muslim countries, creating chaos at numerous airports and other ports of entry.
No such disruption was immediately discernible at Los Angeles International Airport in the hours after the new ban took effect, according to the Associated Press.
Haitian-American Elvanise Louis-Juste, 23, was at the airport earlier Sunday in Newark, New Jersey, awaiting a flight to her home state of Florida.
She said many Haitians wanting to come to the US are simply seeking to escape violence and unrest.
"I have family in Haiti, so it's pretty upsetting to see and hear," Ms Louis-Juste, said of the travel ban.
Many immigration experts say the new ban is more carefully crafted and appears designed to beat court challenges that hampered the first by focusing on the visa application process.
Mr Trump said that some countries had "deficient" screening for passports and other public documents or have historically refused to take back their own citizens.
Mr Trump relied extensively on an annual Homeland Security report of people who remain in the US after their visas expired, the AP reported.
Measuring overstay rates has challenged experts for decades; however, the government has made a limited attempt at this annually since 2016.
The US president's proclamation cites overstay rates for eight of the 12 countries on the ban list.
He also has tied the new ban to a terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado, saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. US officials said the man charged over the attack, who is from Egypt and not on the list, overstayed a tourist visa.
The ban was quickly denounced by groups that provide aid and resettlement help to refugees.
"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," said Abby Maxman, president of Oxfam America, a nonprofit international relief organisation.
The inclusion of Afghanistan angered some supporters who have worked to resettle its people.
The ban does make exceptions for Afghans on Special Immigrant Visas, generally people who worked closely with the US government during the two-decade-long war there.
Afghanistan had been one of the largest sources of resettled refugees, with about 14,000 arrivals in a 12-month period through to September 2024.
Mr Trump suspended refugee resettlement on his first day in office.
AP