A travel ban on 12 countries goes into effect early in the morning on Monday, June 9. The ban is similar to the policy from President Donald Trump’s first term.
It applies to Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Separate restrictions will apply to visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Trump announced the ban in a proclamation on Wednesday, June 4. He said it was intended to protect “the national security and national interest of the United States and its people.”
The president said visitors who overstay visas, like the man charged in an attack that injured dozens of demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, earlier this month, are a danger to the country. The suspect in the attack is from Egypt, which isn’t included in the ban. However, the Department of Homeland Security reported that he had exceeded the duration of his tourist visa and shouted “Free Palestine” prior to initiating the attack.
The new travel ban does not apply to people with visas who are already in the United States, and it includes a few other exemptions. It makes exceptions for people from Afghanistan on Special Immigrant Visas.
Democrats criticized the move. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said in a statement, “This discriminatory policy — which limits legal immigration — not only flies in the face of what our country is supposed to stand for, it will be harmful to our economy and our communities that rely on the contributions of people who come to America from this wide range of countries.”
According to the New York Times, the State Department issued about 170,000 visas last year to people from the 12 countries on the list, most of which were nonimmigrant visitor visas for tourism, business or study. That is a small fraction of the millions of visas it issues every year.
The Associated Press reported that the travel ban results from a Jan. 20 executive order Trump issued requiring the departments of State and Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence to compile a report on “hostile attitudes” toward the U.S. and whether entry from certain countries represented a national security risk.
