Politics
Trump Administration Could Add 36 Countries to Travel Ban. What Local Immigrant Rights Groups Are Saying
The Trump administration is considering a dramatic expansion to its travel ban, according to media reports.
A memo from the U.S. Department of State revealed that 36 additional countries — most of which are African and Black-majority — could soon face full or partial entry restrictions, the Washington Post reported.
The news has sparked outrage from local immigrant rights groups. A press release from the Coalition of Haitian-American Organizations in the Chicagoland Area and the United African Organization said the policy “endangers lives, fuels anti-Black and anti-immigrant sentiment, and dishonors the contributions of Haitian and African immigrants.”
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump imposed a travel ban on the following 12 countries: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Tighter restrictions apply to visitors from seven more: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
The internal State Department memo signed by the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shows the following countries are now facing full or partial bans: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Ethiopia, Egypt, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Nations on the list have been given 60 days to meet new benchmarks and requirements established by the State Department.
Concerns outlined in the memo cite the countries’ apparent lack of identity documents and the questionable security of the nations’ passports as well as a lack of cooperation to facilitate the removal of nationals from the United States.
“This is something that doesn’t sit well with us,” said Etzer Cantave, of the Coalition of Haitian-American Organizations in the Chicagoland Area. “I don’t know what kind of threat we are posing to the U.S.”
News of a large-scale travel ban comes on the heels of mass deportations and immigration raids throughout the country, which Cantave said is part of a greater anti-immigrant sentiment from the federal government.
This isn’t the first time Trump implemented a travel ban. During his first term in office, he successfully put in place what was commonly called the “Muslim ban” — barring individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban” in 2018 after it faced many legal challenges ahead of the decision. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who dissented, warned then that “history will not look kindly on the court’s decision today, nor should it.”
“During the first administration, what we saw was a lot more chaos,” said Alejandra Palacios, staff attorney at the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Illinois Chicago. “This new travel ban has a lot more legal precision. It is broader, it has specific exemptions and waiver options as well, and so I believe that the Trump administration has learned from the litigation in the first administration to now overcome those legal hurdles.”
