‘We don’t want them’: Trump imposes travel bans on citizens from 12 countries

Washington: US President Donald Trump has announced a total ban on citizens from a dozen countries entering the United States, and a partial ban on several more nations, in a move that revives a controversial measure from his first term.

It was part of a trio of presidential decrees on Wednesday night (US time), which also included suspending Harvard University’s power to enrol foreign students and ordering an official investigation into the actions of predecessor Joe Biden, and whether his allies covered up his decline.

US President Donald Trump at a Summer soiree on the South Lawn of the White House on Wednesday.Credit: Bloomberg

Under one order, nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen will be banned from travelling to the US from Monday.

Trump cited the recent antisemitic firebombing in Boulder, Colorado – in which an Egyptian man unlawfully in the US allegedly injured 15 people – as part of the rationale for the move, even though Egypt is not among the banned countries on the list.

The man’s wife and five children were taken into immigration detention after his arrest, but a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) from deporting them.

The new proclamation signed by Trump also announced a partial entry ban on citizens from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

“We don’t want them,” Trump said in a recorded video. “In the 21st century, we’ve seen one terror attack after another carried out by visa overstayers from dangerous places all over the world.

“Thanks to [former president Joe] Biden’s open-door policies, today there are millions and millions of these illegals who should not be in our country.”

The restrictions apply to the entry of immigrants and non-immigrants, or visitors. The countries were identified in a review headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump said, based on the large-scale presence of terrorists, failure to co-operate on visa security, inability to verify travellers’ identities, inadequate record keeping of criminal histories and persistently high rates of visa overstayers.

“Very simply, we cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter the United States,” Trump said.

Bicycles and toys sit outside the townhouse where the Colorado suspect lived in Colorado Springs.Credit: Jerilee Bennett/The Gazette via AP

The proclamation said Afghanistan, which is under the control of the Taliban, lacked a competent authority to issue passports, while Iran sponsored terrorism and historically refused to accept citizens deported from the US.

Trump said the travel ban from his first term – which was also described as a “Muslim ban” for its targeting of Muslim majority countries – was one of his most successful policies, and had prevented terrorist attacks on American soil.

“We will not let what happened in Europe happen to America,” he said while announcing the new ban.

Trump’s first-term ban on travellers from seven majority-Muslim nations went through several iterations before it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.

Biden repealed it in 2021, calling it “a stain on our national conscience”.

Democratic congressman from New York, Daniel Goldman, told CNN the reinstated travel ban was “pretty consistent with what his [Trump’s] quote-unquote immigration policy is, which is just essentially to keep anyone who’s not white out of the country”.

In a separate order issued on Wednesday evening, local time, Trump formalised a ban on Harvard University being able to sponsor international students under the Student Exchange Visa Program.

He accused Harvard of failing to comply with his demand to furnish the government with a list of its foreign students, their home countries and any disciplinary action taken against them.

“Until such time as the university shares the information that the federal government requires to safeguard national security and the American public, it is in the national interest to deny foreign nationals access to Harvard under the auspices of educational exchange,” the proclamation said.

The Trump administration has spent weeks accusing Harvard – arguably the most prestigious university in America – of indulging antisemitism and violence on campus, as well as developing links with US adversaries such as China.

Trump’s executive order cited reporting from the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, saying Harvard had received more than $US150 million ($230 million) from foreign governments over the past five years, and more than $US1 billion from foreign sources.

In a third order on Wednesday (Thursday AEST), Trump directed White House counsel, in consultation with Attorney-General Pam Bondi, to investigate “whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the president”.

The investigation should explicitly examine whether Biden’s aides purposefully shielded the public from information about the president’s physical or mental health, as well as their use of a mechanical pen to sign Biden’s name.

The so-called “auto-pen” has been widely used by multiple presidents and the Department of Justice said it was legal in a 2005 memo. No evidence has been presented that would indicate the device was used without Biden’s knowledge or permission.

Nonetheless, Trump has spoken about Biden’s use of the auto-pen repeatedly since coming to office in January. In the memo, he called it “one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history” and said it had implications for the validity of Biden’s executive actions.

“There are serious doubts as to the decision-making process and even the degree of Biden’s awareness of these actions being taken in his name,” Trump said.

with AP

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