Travelers at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Thursday after President Trump’s announcement of a travel ban targeting a dozen countries.
Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Trump’s New Travel Ban Is Rife With Contradictions

The Trump administration appears to have relied on a variety of considerations as it put together its latest restrictions.

by · NY Times

President Trump said on Thursday that his new travel ban against a dozen mostly African and Middle Eastern countries “can’t come soon enough.” He argued the ban would help prevent terrorist attacks and keep out those who overstay their visas.

But even by that logic, Mr. Trump’s ban is rife with contradictions.

“There’s no consistent set of criteria that would lead you to these 19 countries,” said Doug Rand, a former immigration official in the Biden administration, referring to the 12 countries and seven others that face restrictions but not a full ban. “You have a bunch of countries that seem to be politically motivated and then a bunch of random countries with a fig leaf of data to support their conclusion.”

The order, which goes into effect on Monday, bans travel to the United States by citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. And it limits travel from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. It includes some exemptions, including people with existing visas.

Mr. Trump argued that the timing of the ban was spurred by a recent attack in Colorado on a group honoring hostages being held in Gaza in which an Egyptian man has been arrested and charged.

But Egypt — which is both a military partner and a critical mediator in negotiations between Israel and Hamas — was not on the travel ban list. Also omitted were nations that national security officials have long treated as pariahs, including Syria, where Mr. Trump has recently sought to improve relations.

Mr. Rand and other immigration experts noted that nations home to a higher number of people who overstay visas were left off the list.

Spain is not on there, even though more than 20,000 visitors from the nation overstayed their visas in the United States in the fiscal year covering 2023, according to government data, far more than the combined total for all seven banned African countries. Roughly 400 people from Chad, for example, stayed in the United States longer than their visa allowed during the same time period, according to government data.

Legal experts suggest that the travel ban appears devised to avoid legal flaws that slowed early versions during Mr. Trump’s first term in office.

But the White House has also indicated that working with Mr. Trump on his strategy for mass deportations was a way to avoid getting included. “Several countries have historically failed to accept back their removable nationals, complicating U.S. efforts to manage immigration and public safety,” according to Mr. Trump’s proclamation.

The White House also argued the nations on the list were “deficient” when it came to screening and vetting.

Chad Wolf, the former acting Homeland Security secretary during Mr. Trump’s first term, pushed back on the notion the travel ban unfairly targeted predominately African or Middle Eastern nations.

“Can I help that some very dangerous countries are both Muslim and located in Africa and elsewhere?” he said. “No. I don’t get to pick that. That’s the reality. That’s the world we live in. I understand why people would say, ‘Oh, it’s a Muslim ban 2.0 or it’s just politics.’ The reality and the facts on the ground tell a very different story.”

Mr. Trump’s frequent references to increasing migration to Europe, a continent he has framed as a cautionary tale for America, raised concerns that the true intent of the ban was to cut off immigrants from mostly African and Muslim nations.

When he announced the restrictions on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump promised that his administration would “not let what happened in Europe happen to America.”

Sitting alongside Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany on Thursday in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said Mr. Merz’s country also has “a little problem too with some of the people that were allowed into your country.”

“We want to get them out now,” Mr. Trump said.

P. Deep Gulasekaram, a professor of immigration law at the University of Colorado’s law school, said that the effort appeared to be “performative national security theater.”

He said that Mr. Trump’s actions — including the attempted deportations of students protesting the war in Gaza, statements about Haitian migrants eating pets during the presidential campaign and the prioritizing of white South Africans to seek refuge in the United States — were pointed in one direction.

“This new proclamation is another step in trying to reclaim a white, Christian America, and capitalize by stoking the fires of racial and foreign threat,” he said.

Others said the selection of the countries on the list did not support the argument that the ban was about protecting Americans from attacks.

“If the ban had been preventing attacks, then why did those attacks not happen when the ban was lifted?” said David Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute.

Mr. Bier said that consular officers vet immigrants seeking to enter the United States with visas and that people cannot enter the country based on their word alone.

“The idea that the government is blindly approving applicants from these countries is insulting to the consular officers,” he said. “It’s inaccurate as well.”

Ruth Maclean contributed reporting.

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