Trump hits Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti with travel bans amid immigration crackdown

Yahoo

a day ago

President Donald Trump announced a total ban Wednesday on the entry of Haitian nationals into the United States and partially limited Cubans and Venezuelans from coming into the country, as part of a broader travel ban affecting several other nations.
The White House published a proclamation that 'fully restricts and limits the entry' of Haitian nationals and 'partially restricts and limits' the entry of Cuban and Venezuelan nationals. The travel ban goes into effect on June 9.
READ MORE: Trump travel ban: 'no exceptions' for Cubans, Venezuelans. Other islands may join Haiti on list
The travel ban is the latest of federal government move to clamp down on legal immigration from Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela in particular. On his first days in office, Trump asked his administration to evaluate what countries had insufficient vetting and screening that warranted visa suspensions.
As a result of the proclamation, the United States will suspend the issuance of most immigrant and non-immigrant visas for Cubans and Venezuelans. Nationals from those countries seeking to travel on immigrant visas and tourism, business, student and academic non-immigrant visas — visa categories B-1, B-2, B1/B-2, F, M, and J — will not be allowed to enter the United States starting June 9. Meanwhile, there will be a full ban on entry into the U.S. for Haitian nationals.
The ban does not apply to individuals who currently hold valid visas.
Other nations affected by the full ban include Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Countries affected by the partial ban include Burundi, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo and Turkmenistan.
The proclamation applies to nationals from the designated countries who are outside the United States and don't have a valid visa on the effective date of the proclamation. It notes there are exceptions for green-card holders, dual nationals who have a passport not designated under the travel ban, and immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, including minor children, parents and spouses with certain immigration visas. But U.S. citizens seeking to reunite with older children and siblings in the countries included in the ban will be affected.
Diplomats, foreign government officials and members of international organizations fall under the exceptions.
'The United States must be vigilant during the visa-issuance process to ensure that those aliens approved for admission into the United States do not intend to harm Americans or our national interests,' Trump said in the proclamation.
In 90 days and every six months thereafter, the secretaries of State and Homeland Security must evaluate whether any suspensions should be continued or terminated.
At the annual Haiti Funders Conference in Boston on Wednesday evening, several attendees expressed shock and dismay at the development.
'Singling Haiti out for special treatment provides no protection to U.S. national security, but is another in a long line of transparently racist attacks against Haitians period,' said Brian Concannon, executive director of the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy.
Trump declared in the proclamation that he views the measure as a way to protect the United States from terrorism and crime, and that the designated countries lack screening and vetting information for travelers. He added that the countries singled out cannot effectively manage the travel documents of their nationals.
In the proclamation, the White House said Cuba is considered a state sponsor of terrorism and that its government does not cooperate on law enforcement matters or take back its own nationals as deportees. It also declared that Venezuela lacks a competent central authority for issuing passports or civil documents, and does not have appropriate screening and vetting measures.
It also pointed to Venezuela's traditional refusal of deportees, though independent information obtained by the Miami Herald show that over 4,600 Venezuelan nationals have been deported to Caracas in the last four months. The diplomatic relations between Caracas and Washington have been suspended in 2019 when the Trump administration recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the interim president of Venezuela.
For both Venezuela and Cuba, the proclamation says that consular officials shall reduce the validity of other non-immigrant visas to the 'extent permitted by law.'
In Havana, the U.S. Embassy has not issued visitor visas since late 2017, with some exceptions made to allow the entry into the U.S. of a few humanitarian cases, activists, independent entrepreneurs, artists, among others. Most Cubans have since needed to apply for non-immigrant visas in third countries.
Since Trump took office, the Cuban government has accepted a monthly flight with deportees from the U.S., as it has done since deportations flights to Cuba resumed on April 2023.
In the case of Haiti, the White House pointed to rates of overstay in the United States by visa holders and said the country's lack of a centralized government means it cannot ensure nationals are not national security threats.
The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince has not been processing visa requests in its consulate for at least two years, which also prompted many Haitians to apply for a Biden-era humanitarian parole program the Trump administration ended as soon as it came into office.
The travel ban was announced as Haitians awaited to hear whether the Trump administration would extend or revoke Temporary Protected Status for more than 500,000 Haitians currently living in the U.S. Trump unsuccessfully attempted to end Haiti's TPS during his first term, and experts and advocates fear it will happen again.
Pierre Imbert, a Miami community leader and cofounder of Ayiti Community Trust and Hope on a String, noted that Wednesday's ban bars Haitians who are lifelines between their families on the island and South Florida.
'Access to the United States is key to sustaining families. But it's not a one-way thing. You have a number of families in commerce in Haiti who go back and forth on a U.S. visa....Banning them from accessing the country is yet another chapter in the tragedy of Haiti,' Imbert said.
He highlighted how Haitians under the Biden admnistration had come legally through the humanitarian parole program because visa services on the island were either suspended or severely limited. The Trump administration ended the parole program for Haitians, and now they cannot enter on visas.
'It's not only unfair, but it fails the test of rational thinking,' said Imbert, noting that many Haitian nationals attending the Boston conference will not be able to enter the United States in a few days.
Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of immigrant advocacy group Haitian Bridge Alliance, told the Miami Herald in a statement that it's ironic that the United States views Haiti as a national security threat when the U.S. is the principal source of illegal weapons to Haitian gangs.
Wednesday's proclamation comes after the U.S. Supreme Court gave Trump the green light to go ahead with plans to suspend a Biden-era parole program known as CNHV that allowed over half a million immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to live and work in the United States.
In addition, the Trump administration ended Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans—a designation that had provided deportation protection to over 600,000 people. The Supreme Court has allowed Trump to move forward with the termination as litigation continues in the lower courts.
Adelys Ferro, executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, based in South Florida, criticized the proclamation, calling it a clear display of racism and discrimination.
'They didn't even try to hide the racism, discrimination and xenophobia when drawing up this list. They don't bother anymore,' Ferro said. She noted that the countries facing full or partial restrictions share a common thread: 'They are nations ravaged by war, dictatorships, famine, and death.'
International human rights organizations such as Human Rights First, which has offices in New York City, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., condemned Trump's new travel ban, calling it a continuation of xenophobic policy.
'This return to divisive and racist policies to target entire populations marks yet another anti-immigrant and punitive action taken by President Trump,' said Robyn Barnard, senior director of Refugee Advocacy at Human Rights First. 'The ban will harm refugees, asylum seekers and other vulnerable populations, including many who have been waiting to reunite with loved ones in our country. Bans do nothing to make our country secure, but rather undermine our national security and arbitrarily target those most in need of protection.'
This is not the first travel ban under a Trump administration. Trump first issued a travel ban in January 2017 during his first term, when he imposed a 90-day ban on nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and barred entry for all refugees without a visa or valid travel documents for 120 days.
In September 2017 a new proclamation expanded the restrictions, banning nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Chad, Venezuela and North Korea from entering the U.S. In the case of Venezuela, certain government officials and their immediate family members were banned, but not its nationals in general on tourist or business visas.