Why Trump lined up a tiny Himalayan nation for his travel ban list
Along with North Korea, Iran and Afghanistan, Bhutan – the Buddhist-majority nation of 800,000 people – faces a complete ban on its citizens entering the US.
Known as the Land of the Thunder Dragon, it is nestled high up in the mountains between India and China. It hosted the Prince and Princess of Wales in 2016, and the King in 1998. This year, Ed Sheeran played a concert at the national stadium.
The new travel ban – which has not yet been signed off – is the result of Donald Trump's executive order in January, which required the State Department to identify countries 'for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries'.
The president said he was taking the action to protect American citizens 'from aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes'.
The red group, comprising 11 countries including Bhutan, would face the most severe restrictions – a complete ban on their citizens entering the US.
The potential blacklisting has caused concern in Thimphu, and other capitals, as observers try to understand why they have been targeted.
The US draft list has sparked debate over Bhutan's own immigration policies, where it has barred exiled citizens from returning to their homeland.
Bhutan introduced a 'one nation, one people' policy after a 1988 census revealed a Nepalese majority in the country's southern districts. Tens of thousands of Nepali-speaking Bhutanese were evicted and forced into refugee camps in Nepal. By the early 1990s, Bhutan had expelled around 80,000 people – about one-sixth of its population – using threats, destruction of property, imprisonment, and torture.
Most of these refugees have since been resettled in countries such as the US, Canada, and Australia. However, Bhutan has refused to allow exiled communities to return, drawing criticism from human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch.
Sudarshan Pyakurel, executive director of the Bhutanese Community of Central Ohio, accused the country of hypocrisy. 'For decades, Bhutan has barred Bhutanese-Americans from visiting their homeland, seeing their families, attending funerals, weddings, and religious pilgrimages. Was that fair? Bhutan defends its right to impose restrictions, yet when other nations do the same, it suddenly feels wrong? Fairness isn't a one-way street,' Mr Pyakurel said.
'If Bhutan truly seeks fairness, it should start with its own people – grant visitation rights to Bhutanese-Americans, release political prisoners, repatriate the remaining refugees from Nepal,' he added.
Another possible reason for the exclusion could be the fallout from a major immigration scandal in 2023, in which Nepalese nationals posed as 'Bhutanese refugees' to gain entry to the US.
The scam, involving high-ranking Nepalese politicians and bureaucrats, led to the arrest of Top Bahadur Rayamajhi, the former deputy prime minister, and Bal Krishna Khand, the former home minister, who were accused of extorting over $2 million from Nepali citizens.
They allegedly charged between $7,600 and $38,000 per person for fake refugee documents to facilitate entry into the US. The scam defrauded at least 875 people, sparking protests in Kathmandu and raising concerns in Washington about the integrity of Bhutanese refugee resettlement.
Another factor contributing to Bhutan's red-listing may be an increase in Bhutanese nationals illegally entering the US via Canada and Mexico. Bhutan's high unemployment rate has driven a significant outflow of young professionals and civil servants.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement data show that between 2021 and 2024, at least 51 Bhutanese nationals were arrested for immigration violations.
Meanwhile, the figures from the US Department of Homeland Security indicate that between 2013 and 2022, at least 200 Bhutanese were caught residing illegally in the US and 61 were deemed inadmissible upon arrival.
There are also concerns over Bhutanese visa overstay rates, with the Trump administration targeting countries whose nationals have demonstrated patterns of remaining in the US beyond their authorised periods of stay.
In 2022, 112 out of the 295 visitors from Bhutan failed to leave the US as required. In 2023, 72 out 371 overstayed their visas.
Bhutan had previously been flagged for high overstay rates in a 2019 Homeland Security report, which identified it alongside Chad (44.94 per cent), Djibouti (37.91 per cent), Mauritania (30.49 per cent), Iran (21.64 per cent), and Afghanistan (11.99 per cent).
During Mr Trump's first term, Bhutan was among several nations whose citizens were required to post bonds of up to $15,000 before being granted US visas due to overstay concerns.
The US has long suspected Bhutanese nationals of exploiting cultural exchange programmes to gain entry to the country.
According to a 2010 Wikileaks cable, a group claiming to be a Bhutanese Buddhist folk music and dance troupe was discovered to be a front for human smuggling. They would charge between $3,000 and $ 4,000 from people for the US visa.
Bhutan's ministry of foreign affairs and external trade has formally requested a review of the listing, insisting that Bhutanese citizens did not pose a significant security threat to the US, according to local media outlet Kuensel.
Karma Loday, a former politician, wrote an open letter to Mr Trump on his Facebook page, expressing disappointment over the US ban.
'I feel it is unfair for whatever reason to have my beloved country enlisted with some of the countries with terrorism history. We are in no capacity to even defend our nation militarily without seeking help from others let alone wage an act of terrorism to the United States if that is a suspicion,' Mr Loday said.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Analysis-India-US spat over trade and oil threatens wider fallout
By Krishna N. Das, David Brunnstrom and Shivam Patel NEW DELHI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump's tirade against India over trade and Russian oil purchases threatens to undo two decades of diplomatic progress, analysts and officials say, and could derail other areas of cooperation as domestic political pressures drive both sides to harden their stances. India's opposition parties and the general public have urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to stand up to what they call bullying by Trump, who on Wednesday signed an executive order subjecting Indian imports to an additional 25% in duties on top of an existing 25% tariff, due to its big purchases of Russian oil. While India has emerged in recent years as a key partner for Washington in its strategic rivalry with China, its large U.S. trade surplus and close relations with Russia - which Trump is seeking to pressure into agreeing to a peace agreement with Ukraine - have made it a prime target in the Republican president's global tariff offensive. Trump's taunt that India could buy oil from arch enemy Pakistan has also not gone down well in New Delhi, said two Indian government sources. India has also rejected repeated claims by Trump that he used trade as a lever to end a recent military conflict between India and Pakistan. In an unusually sharp statement this week, India accused the U.S. of double standards in singling it out for Russian oil imports while continuing to buy Russian uranium hexafluoride, palladium and fertiliser. On Wednesday, it called the tariffs "unfair, unjustified and unreasonable," vowing to "take all actions necessary to protect its national interests." But New Delhi knows that any further escalation will hurt it in matters beyond trade, said the sources. Unlike China, India does not have leverage like supplies of rare earths to force Trump's hand to improve the terms of any trade deal, they said. In recent years, successive U.S. administrations, including Trump's first, carefully cultivated relations with India with an eye on it as a vital partner in long-term efforts to counter the growing might of China. But analysts say Trump's recent moves have plunged the relationship back to possibly its worst phase since the U.S. imposed sanctions on India for nuclear tests in 1998. "India is now in a trap: because of Trump's pressure, Modi will reduce India's oil purchases from Russia, but he cannot publicly admit to doing so for fear of looking like he's surrendering to Trump's blackmail," said Ashley Tellis at Washington's Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "We could be heading into a needless crisis that unravels a quarter century of hard-won gains with India." Indian state refiners have in recent days stopped buying Russian oil as discounts narrowed and pressure from Trump rose, Reuters has reported. NEW CHALLENGES FOR RELATIONS A more pressing challenge for India, analysts say, is the stark divergence between its priorities and Trump's political base on key issues such as work visas for tech professionals and offshoring of services. India has long been a major beneficiary of U.S. work visa programs and the outsourcing of software and business services, a sore point for Americans who have lost jobs to cheaper workers in India. Relations with India risk becoming a "football in American domestic politics," warned Evan Feigenbaum, a former senior State Department official under the Republican presidency of George W. Bush. "Issues that directly touch India are among the most partisan and explosive in Washington, including immigration and deportation, H1B visas for tech workers, offshoring and overseas manufacturing by U.S. companies, and technology sharing and co-innovation with foreigners," he wrote in a LinkedIn post. Since a 2008 deal to cooperate on civilian nuclear technology, the two countries have deepened intelligence sharing and defence cooperation and expanded interactions with Australia and Japan through the Quad grouping aimed at containing China's dominance in the Indo-Pacific. But fractures have appeared, despite Modi's rapport with Trump in his first term and then former President Joe Biden. Images in February of Indians deported by the U.S. on military planes, their hands and legs shackled, horrified the country just days before Modi went to see Trump seeking to stave off high tariffs. The relationship was also seriously tested in late 2023 when the U.S. said it had foiled a plot with Indian links to kill a Sikh separatist leader on U.S. soil. New Delhi has denied any official connection to the plot. "The Modi regime's credibility in the U.S. has gone down," said Sukh Deo Muni, a former Indian diplomat and a professor emeritus at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University. "And maybe there are people who think that India or Modi had to be brought back on track, if not taught a lesson. And if that trend continues, I'm quite worried that the challenge is quite powerful and strong for India to navigate." STRENGTHENING TIES WITH U.S. RIVALS One Indian government source said India needs to gradually repair ties with the U.S. while engaging more with other nations that have faced the brunt of Trump tariffs and aid cuts, including the African Union and the BRICS bloc that includes Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa. India is already making some moves with Russia and China. Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit New Delhi this year and on Tuesday, Russia said the two countries had discussed further strengthening defence cooperation "in the form of a particularly privileged strategic partnership." India has also boosted engagement with China, a change after years of tensions following a deadly border clash in 2020. Modi is set to visit China soon for the first time since 2018. "Russia will attempt to exploit the rift between the U.S. and India by proposing the restoration of the Russia-India-China trilateral and new projects in defence," said analyst Aleksei Zakharov at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi. "India will undoubtedly be mindful of structural factors such as sanctions against Russia and will seek to find a compromise with the Trump administration." Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Boston Globe
17 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Stanford newspaper challenges legal basis for student deportations
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The lawsuit says that the newspaper, which is open to all students and has more than 150 members, according to the complaint, has weathered resignations and withdrawn stories by noncitizens who were concerned that publishing content about Israel or the conditions in the Gaza Strip could leave them vulnerable to deportation. Advertisement The climate of fear the lawsuit cites at Stanford follows a spate of arrests earlier this year, when the Trump administration began targeting prominent student activists in March, including Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, over their activism in speaking out against the Israeli government and the mounting death toll in Gaza. Advertisement 'They are going after lawfully present noncitizens for bedrock speech, like authoring an op-ed and going to protest,' said Conor Fitzpatrick, the supervising senior attorney at the foundation. 'And unless you have a blue passport with an eagle on it that says United States of America, they think they can throw you out of the country for it.' In those and other cases, immigration agents arrested the students after Secretary of State Marco Rubio invoked the provision, deeming the students a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests. In each case, Rubio personally signed off on the decision to revoke a student visa or render a lawful permanent resident deportable after determining that those interests were at stake. 'Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump administration are trying to turn the inalienable human right of free speech into a privilege contingent upon the whims of a federal bureaucrat, triggering deportation proceedings against noncitizens residing lawfully in this country for their protected political speech regarding American and Israeli foreign policy,' the lawsuit says. The new lawsuit mirrored many elements of a case brought by another group, the American Association of University Professors, which is seeking to block the Trump administration from pursuing what it describes as a policy of 'ideological deportations' -- using the law to target activists based on their shared criticism of Israel and its conduct in the war. That case was argued before a federal judge during a two-week trial in Boston in July, and he is expected to decide this month whether to block the deportations on First Amendment grounds. The case raised similar concerns about chilled speech on college campuses, with testimony from faculty at several universities about how dramatically noncitizen academics had withdrawn from public life. Advertisement But lawyers in that case explicitly stopped short of arguing that using the foreign policy provision to target student demonstrators was unconstitutional, sidestepping a risky gambit in court over whether Rubio had abused the authority. That caution came as William G. Young, the judge in the case, expressed skepticism throughout the trial about whether he could rule against Rubio or others in the Trump administration given that they were exercising powers given to them by Congress. 'It seems to me we have a new administration who has, you know, absolutely the primary authority over the foreign policy of the United States,' Young said during closing arguments last month. But other judges have already contemplated the same questions the new lawsuit raises, concluding that using the foreign policy provision in the student activist cases was vague and probably violated the First Amendment. In the case involving Khalil, Judge Michael E. Farbiarz of the U.S. District Court in New Jersey wrote that using the foreign policy provision to detain him was probably unconstitutional, even though that did not factor into his decisions to order Khalil's release in June. Since the Supreme Court limited federal judges' ability to issue nationwide injunctions in June, any ruling in the case would likely apply only to the plaintiffs at Stanford. But the lawsuit aims to set a legal precedent that the organization hopes could be used more broadly. (STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS.) Fitzpatrick, the foundation lawyer, said there were narrow but conceivable situations in which the use of the foreign policy law would be appropriate, such as if pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politicians who fled the country after Russia's invasion sought refuge in the United States and continued to work to undermine Kyiv from abroad. Advertisement 'That has an arguable constitutional basis,' he said. 'What does not have an arguable constitutional basis is someone going up to a podium, whether it's at a city council meeting or a local park, at a protest, voicing an opinion that would be completely protected if you or I said it, and the secretary of state saying, 'We don't like the ideas you're spreading -- get out.' 'That's un-American,' he said. This article originally appeared in
Miami Herald
17 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Was dropping atomic bombs on Japan justified? 80 years later, views have changed
American public opinion toward the atomic bombing of Japan has changed significantly over time. The latest poll from the Pew Research Center reveals that less than half of Americans currently view the bombings as justified, marking a notable drop from earlier years. The survey was conducted ahead of the 80th anniversary of the bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two nuclear blasts killed around 200,000 people, many of whom were children, and left survivors with debilitating side effects, including higher rates of cancer and chronic illness. The attacks — which took place on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945 — were quickly followed by Japan's surrender to the U.S., which brought an end to World War II. They also signaled the dawn of the nuclear age, sparking a worldwide arms race that has led at least nine countries to develop atomic arsenals. In the recent Pew survey, 35% of respondents said the bombings were justified, while a slightly smaller share, 31%, said they were not justified. An additional 33% said they were not sure. The results appear to follow a trend of declining support for the nuclear attacks. In 1945 — in the immediate aftermath of the bombings — a Gallup poll found the vast majority of Americans, 85%, approved of the U.S. decision to drop the newly invented weapons on Japanese cities. Many years later, in 1990, another Gallup survey revealed that a much smaller share of respondents, 53%, approved of the attacks. And, in four subsequent Gallup surveys conducted between 1991 and 2005, approval fluctuated between 53% and 59%. In 2015 — on the 70th anniversary of the bombings — a Pew poll found 56% of Americans believed the attack was justified, while 34% said it was not. However, this survey did not include a 'not sure' option, unlike the most recent one. The latest survey — which sampled 5,044 U.S. adults June 2-8 — also revealed noticeable differences in views based on gender, partisanship and generational lines. For example, 51% of men said the bombings were justified, while just 20% of women said the same. Similarly, 51% of Republicans and those who lean Republican said the attacks were justified, while just 23% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents said the same. Older Americans were also more likely than their younger counterparts to approve of the U.S. bombings. Nearly half of those 65 and older, 48%, said they were justified, while just 27% of 18- to 29-year-olds agreed. The poll — which has a margin of error of 1.6 percentage points — also asked respondents whether they believe the development of nuclear weapons has made the world more or less safe. The vast majority, 69%, said the creation of atomic weapons has made the world less safe. Just 10% said it's made the global community more safe, and 21% said they were not sure. When asked if nuclear weapons made the U.S. in specific safer, 47% said no and 26% said yes. Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say both that the development of nuclear weapons has made the world and the U.S. more safe.
