New travel ban could block tens of thousands
Fresh proclamation targets 8 countries, will last indefinitely.
President Donald Trump’s latest travel ban could block the issuance of tens of thousands of visas each year to people who want to immigrate to the United States or come on business or as tourists, according to a Washington Post review of State Department data, and it is threatening to short-circuit the impending Supreme Court showdown over whether Trump can lawfully impose such wide-ranging travel restrictions.
On Monday, the Supreme Court put off — at least for now — a hearing on Trump’s previous travel ban, asking instead for briefs on whether the latest restrictions mean there is nothing left for the justices to decide.
Opponents of the ban, meanwhile, vowed to fight on, asserting that the new measure inflicted some of the same harms of the first, and that it was driven by the same discriminatory intent.
“For us, this was a Muslim ban, and it remains a Muslim ban,” said Zahra Billoo, the executive director of the San Francisco chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The newest ban is in some ways even more expansive than the last — remaining in effect indefinitely, and imposing restrictions on eight, rather than six, countries. But unlike the last ban, the restrictions vary from place to place, and countries that increase their cooperation and information-sharing with the U.S. might be able to find their way off the list.
For Syria and North Korea, the president’s proclamation blocks immigrants wanting to relocate to the U.S. and non-immigrants wishing to visit in some capacity. For Iran, the proclamation blocks both immigrants and non-immigrants, though it exempts students and those participating in a cultural exchange.
The proclamation blocks people from Chad, Libya and Yemen from coming to the United States as immigrants or on business or tourist visas, and it blocks people from Somalia from coming as immigrants. The proclamation names Venezuela, but it only blocks certain government officials.
A Washington Post review of State Department data found that more than 65,000 visas were issued in fiscal 2016 that would now likely fall under the ban. The ban, though, contains a robust list of people who might qualify for a case-by-case exception, including for those with significant U.S. contacts or those wanting to visit close family members.
The ban, too, exempts those already admitted to the United States on the effective date of the proclamation — which, for those not affected by the previous travel ban, is Oct. 18.
The Supreme Court had been set to hear arguments on Trump’s previous travel ban, inked in March, but on Monday it removed that hearing from the calendar and asked for briefs on whether the case was now moot.
One piece of the previous executive order — the 120-day ban on all refugees entering the U.S. — remains in effect until Oct. 24. The latest ban leaves unclear what will happen after that. U.S. officials have been discussing possibly lowering the refugee cap for fiscal 2018 to below 50,000.
Opponents of the ban were largely mum on what the legal path forward would be.
“It does continue to injure our current plaintiffs,” said Justin Cox, a staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center.
To establish the new ban, U.S. officials conducted a worldwide review of the information countries were able to provide on their travelers wanting to come to the United States.
Initially, 16 countries were deemed inadequate, and 31 were at risk of becoming inadequate, authorities said. U.S. officials then negotiated with foreign counterparts, ultimately producing a list of eight countries that were either unable or unwilling to provide the information the United States wanted.
Sudan was dropped from the ban list, and its removal is noteworthy in part because it is one of just three countries designated by the U.S. government as state sponsors of terrorism. The other two, Iran and Syria, remain on the travel ban list.
Those in Chad, in particular, seemed surprised.
“The reaction has been astonishment and then indignation,” said Nour Ibedou, director of the Chadian Human Rights Association. “We do not understand how our country achieved this lack of trust from the United States.”
Administration officials can now point to Venezuela and North Korea as being non-Muslim majority countries on the banned list — perhaps undercutting the argument of opponents that the measure is meant to fulfill Trump’s campaign promise of a Muslim ban. But ban opponents note that the restrictions on Venezuela affect only government officials, and few people from North Korea travel to the United States.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said the new ban was an “unfounded strategy” against the South American country.
“We’re looking for dialogue, we’re looking for channels,” he said. “We have to stop the madness and irrationality.”