The Trump administration has implemented travel restrictions against citizens of a new set of countries, extending the travel ban policies that have been key parts of both Trump terms. The latest move comes as the president has ramped up xenophobic and racist rhetoric in recent weeks.

New travel bans cover African, Caribbean and Middle Eastern countries and territories

The Trump administration announced a new list of countries facing travel restrictions on Tuesday, adding to the list of banned or restricted countries that was announced earlier this year. The latest list includes five countries for which citizens are altogether forbidden from traveling to the United States. Four of these countries are in Africa: Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and South Sudan. Syria also faces a total ban. Additionally, individuals with travel documents issued by the Palestinian Authority are also banned.

“Several U.S.-designated terrorist groups operate actively in the West Bank or Gaza Strip and have murdered American citizens,” according to a White House fact sheet concerning the Palestinian Authority ban. “Also, the recent war in these areas likely resulted in compromised vetting and screening abilities.”

The new policy also places restrictions, but not outright bans, on people from 15 other countries:  Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, the Ivory Coast, Dominica, Gabon, Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Except for Tonga, these countries are all majority-Black and located in Africa or the Caribbean. The Trump administration has justified these restrictions by citing security concerns, claiming that the included countries and territories had “widespread corruption, fraudulent or unreliable civil documents and criminal records” that interfered with efforts to vet people traveling from these locations.

Trump’s history of travel bans and anti-immigrant policies

The latest iteration of the Trump travel ban adds to a controversial policy that has been one of Trump’s signature policy initiatives. During his first term, the policy was referred to as a “Muslim ban” by critics due to its focus on predominantly Islamic countries. The administration implemented several versions of the travel ban, including adding several mostly-African nations in 2020, and the policy ultimately survived legal challenges that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Earlier this year, Trump again issued a travel ban against a dozen mostly Black or Muslim-majority countries.

The Trump travel bans are part of an aggressively xenophobic approach to immigration and international travel. Trump has implemented a series of heavy-handed crackdowns on illegal immigration, scaled back policies like Temporary Protected Status for people fleeing dangerous situations in countries such as Haiti, and ramped up xenophobic and racist rhetoric. Most recently, after an Afghan man who came to the United States as an asylum seeker allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., Trump announced that he was ending immigration to the United States from “Third World” nations. Trump has also singled out Somali communities for his racist rhetoric, even reviving his “s**thole countries” slur against African nations and Haiti.

With the latest additions to Trump’s travel ban, the president has reinforced his anti-immigrant rhetoric with concrete policy moves. The new list of countries issued by the White House doubles the number of countries currently facing travel bans or restrictions from the Trump administration, and the policy impacts millions of people across dozens of countries and territories.
The post Trump Travel Ban List Adds Niger, Mali And More As Number Of Countries Doubles appeared first on Blavity.



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