Upon taking office during his first term, one of Donald Trump’s opening moves was a bigoted travel ban on people from Muslim-majority countries.
This time around, Trump is preparing another ban that could go into effect in days. Advocates warned Tuesday that it will sweep up not just Muslims living abroad, but also immigrants living in the U.S. that hold what Trump deems “hostile attitudes” toward the country.
The forthcoming travel ban would become the latest of Trump’s draconian anti-immigration policies, many of which rehash the same themes about national security and public safety.
“The travel ban that is going to be coming out is going to serve as another basis for the targeting of activists.”
Trump issued a January 20 executive order that used the language about “hostile attitudes” to target immigrants for deportation. The phrase has been echoed in remarks from U.S. officials justifying the arrest over the weekend of the Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil, said Yasmine Taeb, the legislative and political director for the Muslim advocacy group MPower Change.
“All of these policies are interconnected,” she said, “and the travel ban that is going to be coming out is going to serve as another basis for the targeting of activists advocating for Palestinian human rights.”
Targeting “Hostile” Residents
The White House has yet to formally release details of the latest travel ban, but Trump has repeatedly said he will reissue his eight-year-old policy, which was discarded by President Joe Biden when he came into office in 2021.
The new ban could add Afghanistan and Pakistan to the list of countries whose citizens were banned from entering the U.S. during Trump’s first term, which included Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, according to a report from Reuters. Trump expanded the list to include four additional African countries in 2020.
From the start, Trump’s first travel ban faced challenges in court. This time around, the Trump administration has been trying to preempt lawsuits. In his January 20 executive order, Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to prepare a report on countries with “deficient” vetting information, a move intended to help the new ban withstand legal scrutiny.
The executive order that would form the basis of a forthcoming travel ban doesn’t stop at targeting people who live abroad. It says that the U.S. must ensure foreign nationals living here “do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.”
Trump followed up that first executive order with another one on January 30 that more narrowly focused on pro-Palestinian protesters.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you. I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before,” Trump said in a statement announcing the order.
At a press conference Tuesday, civil liberties and immigration advocates said they worried the vague language about “hostile attitudes” will set up a dragnet for people living legally in the U.S. on visas or holding lawful permanent residence, also known as green card status.
Khalil, the Columbia graduate who as a student had been involved in protests, was a green card holder. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents reportedly said at the time of his arrest that his permanent residence was being revoked.
Advocates said the new Muslim ban could undermine the very values the Trump administration says it wants to reinforce with its immigration crackdown.
“This travel ban that the administration is planning to bring back will undermine our national security, undermine our economy, undermine fundamental values of our nation like free speech, and force American families and communities like ours to live in fear,” said Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council. “To live with an assumption that the government is always watching, and if we don’t stay within the very partisan lines defined by the current administration, we and our friends and our loved ones could be kicked out of this country.”
Barring Afghan Refugees
In addition to targeting free speech on Gaza, news reports suggest the newest travel ban could add Afghanistan and Pakistan to the list of countries whose nationals are barred from coming to America.
That would have devastating repercussions for the tens of thousands of Afghan refugees at risk if they are forced to return to their home country, in many cases because they aided the U.S. in its long war against the Taliban, advocates said Tuesday.
“This makes the Trump administration and the U.S. government a willing accomplice of the Taliban in Afghanistan. This decision will ensure that folks are killed, detained, surveilled and extrajudicially executed in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan,” said Arash Azizzada, the co-director of Afghans for a Better Tomorrow.
Over 200,000 Afghans are living in the U.S. as refugees and another 40,000 still hope to move to the country, NPR reported in January. The travel ban could bar the latter from entering the country and force the former to live in fear of violating the vague ban on “hostile attitudes,” Azizzada said.
The White House declined to comment on which countries will be included in the travel ban. An administration spokesperson said, “No decisions regarding possible travel bans have been made, and anyone claiming otherwise does not know what they are talking about.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
