Advocates and elected officers forcefully condemned President Donald Trump’s journey ban focusing on a dozen Black and brown nations. Citing nationwide safety issues, Trump’s Wednesday proclamation absolutely restricts or limits entry into the USA for nationals from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., co-chairs of the Home Haiti Caucus, slammed the administration’s “bigoted” journey ban as an “unambiguously xenophobic assault on essentially the most weak folks on the planet.” The congresswoman warned that many will “die as a direct consequence of his cruelty.”
“These are youngsters, girls, and males who’re fleeing political turmoil and warfare, who’re attempting to outlive famine and pure catastrophes,” mentioned Pressley and Clarke in a joint assertion. “Haitians and so many others are drowning, and Donald Trump simply ripped a life preserver from their determined arms and tied weights round their ankles.”
The Democratic leaders mentioned the ban is “focused abuse” in opposition to thousands and thousands of Black and Brown people who goes past Trump’s Muslim ban throughout his first time period in workplace, which equally included nations from Africa and the Center East.
“It’s undergirded by nothing however baseless accusations and one man’s insatiable hate,” mentioned Pressley and Clarke.
Trump’s authentic journey ban in 2017 was rapidly challenged and blocked in federal courtroom, ultimately ensuing within the president issuing a sequence of different journey bans later that 12 months and in 2020 that remained intact till former President Joe Biden revoked them. A few of the nations in Trump’s new journey ban are the identical nations as people who had been a part of his first-term ban. The ban contains visa suspensions for some affected immigrants at the moment residing in the USA.
Guerline Jozef, govt director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, an advocacy group for Black migrants, dismissed the Trump administration’s argument that its journey ban is about nationwide safety.
“That is about systemic racism, xenophobia, and the criminalization of Black, Brown, and Muslim our bodies globally,” mentioned Jozef. “As soon as once more, U.S. immigration coverage is being weaponized to disclaim entry, dignity, and primary human rights to folks from nations which have lengthy borne the brunt of colonialism, Western intervention, and financial extraction.”
The immigration activist added, “This is identical administration that deports Black immigrants solely to import White refugees from South Africa beneath the false declare of genocide.’’
Jozef urged Congress to move laws to codify “guardrails that stop the wholesale banning of nationals from total areas of the world.”
Nihad Awad, govt director of CAIR Nationwide, mentioned the ban focusing on principally African and Muslim nations raises the “specter of extra imprecise free speech restrictions” and described it as “overbroad, pointless and ideologically motivated.”
Award warned, “Even with the exceptions outlined within the order, this new journey ban dangers separating households, depriving college students of instructional alternatives, blocking sufferers from entry to distinctive medical remedy, and making a chilling impact on vacationers.”
He continued, “The federal government already can and does interact in an intensive vetting course of earlier than approving particular person visas, and it may proceed to take action with any nations of concern moderately than imposing blanket bans on their residents.”
U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., mentioned Trump’s journey ban is supposed to instill worry and “distract” from the president’s “One Massive Stunning Invoice Act” that’s at the moment being thought of for passage in Congress. The nation’s solely Gen Z congressman blasted the laws as “reckless.” He warned that its proposed tax and finances cuts would “hand over tax cuts to billionaires and rip away healthcare and meals help from working households.”
“We gained’t give in to this political fear-mongering,” mentioned Frost. “Similar to throughout Trump’s first time period, this ban will likely be met with authorized challenges and fierce public outrage.”
