US President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a proclamation banning the citizens of 12 countries from entering the US, saying the move was needed to protect against “foreign terrorists” and other security threats, while also suspending for an initial six months the entry into the US of foreign nationals seeking to study or participate in exchange programs at Harvard University.
The directive is part of an immigration crackdown Trump launched this year at the start of his second term, which has also included the deportation to El Salvador of hundreds of Venezuelans suspected of being gang members.
The countries affected by the latest travel ban are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Photo: AFP
The entry of people from seven other countries — Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela — would be partially restricted.
“We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm,” Trump said in a video posted on X.
He said the list could be revised and new countries could be added.
The proclamation is effective on Monday at 12:01am, and visas issued before that date would not be revoked, the order said.
During his first term in office, Trump announced a ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations, a policy that went through several iterations before it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
Former US president Joe Biden, a Democrat who succeeded Trump, repealed that ban on nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen in 2021, calling it “a stain on our national conscience.”
Trump said the countries subject to the most severe restrictions were determined to harbor a “large-scale presence of terrorists,” fail to cooperate on visa security and have an inability to verify travelers’ identities, inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories and high rates of visa overstays in the US.
Somalia immediately pledged to work with the US to address security issues, while Venezuelan Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace Diosdado Cabello described the US government as fascist and warned Venezuelans of the dangers of staying in the US.
“The truth is being in the United States is a big risk for anybody, not just for Venezuelans... They persecute our countrymen, our people for no reason,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trump also cited national security concerns as a justification for barring international students from entering the US to pursue studies at Harvard.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based university in a statement called Trump’s proclamation “yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights.”
“Harvard will continue to protect its international students,” it added.
The suspension can be extended beyond six months. Trump’s proclamation also directs the US Department of State to consider revoking academic or exchange visas of any current Harvard students who meet his proclamation’s criteria.
The directive came a week after a federal judge in Boston announced she would issue a broad injunction blocking the administration from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, who make up about a quarter of its student body.
Separately, the US Department of Education said it had notified the Middle States Commission on Higher Education that it believes Columbia University had violated federal anti-discrimination laws by its alleged failure to protect Jewish students on its campus.
A spokesperson for Columbia, which has been under pressure from the Trump administration for months, said in a statement that the school addressed the department’s concerns directly with commission and is continuing to work with the federal government to address anti-Semitism.
Columbia has been the epicenter of a pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel student protest movement that has roiled US campuses over the past year and a half as Israel’s war in Gaza raged.
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