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06-06-2025
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has signed a new travel ban restricting travel to the US from 19 countries with “hostile attitudes” or a “significant terrorist presence,” a policy reminiscent of the deeply controversial “Muslim travel ban” he introduced during his first term.
“We don’t want them,” Trump declared on Truth Social as he announced that travel will be fully restricted from 12 nations from 9 June: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Partial restrictions will apply to seven others; Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Issuing the presidential proclamation via a video statement on Wednesday, Trump cited Sunday’s firebomb attack on peaceful protesters in Boulder, Colorado, by a man alleged to be an Egyptian citizen in the country on an expired visa, as justification for the ban, saying Americans face “extreme danger” from foreign nationals “who are not properly vetted.”
Lawful permanent residents, athletes traveling for the World Cup and Olympics and those who have already been granted asylum or refugee status are among the limited exceptions to the restrictions.
Others with immediate family member visas, dual citizenship with a non-restricted passport and United Nations and NATO visas are also exempt.
Democrats hit out at ‘racist’ and ‘discriminatory’ travel ban
Democrats have spoken out against the travel ban announced by President Donald Trump, criticizing it as a “racist policy”. Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar slammed the “discriminatory policy” as “beyond shameful” on social media.
“Just like his first Muslim Ban, this latest announcement flies in the face of basic morality and goes directly against our values,” she said on social media. “This racist policy will not make us safe, it will separate families and endanger lives. We cannot let it stand.” New York Rep. Nydia Velazquez echoed Omar’s comments, adding Americans must “defend what’s right”.
“Trump’s new travel ban has nothing to do with safety & everything to do with shutting people out & isolating the US,” she wrote on X. “Just like in 2017, it’s discriminatory & wrong.”
Travel ban ‘flies in the face of US values’, says congresswoman
Trump’s travel ban will only “isolate” the US on the world stage and “flies in the face of what our country is supposed to stand for”, a democratic congresswoman has said. Pramila Jayapal, who represents most of Seattle, said the policy “not only lays the blame in the wrong place, it creates a dangerous precedent”.
Banning people fleeing from dangerous countries such as Afghanistan, the Congo, Haiti and Sudan will “only further destabilize global security”, she added.
“Trump is indiscriminately taking a chainsaw to our government destroying federal agencies that keep us safe, indiscriminately cutting jobs, and hindering our progress across research fields.”
Trump hints that Egypt could be next on the travel ban list
In the wake of the Colorado terror attack, in which an Egyptian national who had overstayed his visa allegedly set fire to pro-Israel demonstrators, Donald Trump has suggested Egypt could be next on the travel ban list.
On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that ICE agents had taken the wife and children of Mohamed Sabry Soliman into custody. This came after police in Boulder, Colorado arrested Soliman for allegedly throwing molotov cocktails at a peaceful demonstration for Israeli hostages on Sunday. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
