US President Donald Trump’s executive order prohibiting citizens from 12 countries from entering the United States will become effective at 12:01 AM ET (0401 GMT) on Monday. The President stated that this measure is intended to safeguard the nation from “foreign terrorists.”
The nations impacted by this latest travel ban include Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Additionally, entry for individuals from seven other countries—Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela—will face partial restrictions.
Trump, a Republican, asserted that the countries subjected to the most stringent restrictions were identified as harboring a “large-scale presence of terrorists,” failing to cooperate on visa security measures, lacking the ability to verify travelers’ identities, exhibiting inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories, and experiencing high rates of visa overstays in the United States. He cited last Sunday’s incident in Boulder, Colorado, where an Egyptian national threw a gasoline bomb into a crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators, as an example of the necessity for these new curbs. However, Egypt is not included in the travel ban.
This travel ban is consistent with Trump’s broader policy agenda of restricting immigration into the United States and echoes a similar action taken during his first term, when he imposed restrictions on travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations.
Officials and residents in the affected countries expressed dismay and disbelief regarding the impending ban on their citizens. Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno announced that he had instructed his government to cease issuing visas to US citizens in retaliation for Trump’s directive. “Chad has neither planes to offer nor billions of dollars to give, but Chad has its dignity and its pride,” he wrote in a Facebook post, drawing a comparison to countries like Qatar, which reportedly gifted a luxury airplane to the US for Trump’s use and pledged billions in US investments.
Afghans who had worked for US or US-funded projects and harbored hopes of resettlement in the United States voiced fears that the travel ban would compel their return to Afghanistan, where they could face reprisals from the Taliban. Democratic US lawmakers also raised concerns about these policies. US Representative Ro Khanna stated on social media late on Thursday, “Trump’s travel ban on citizens from over 12 countries is draconian and unconstitutional.” He added, “People have a right to seek asylum.”
