 "Trump’s ban on travellers from 12 countries begins early Monday")
US President Donald Trump’s order barring people of 12 countries from entering the United States takes effect at 12:01 a.m. ET (0401 GMT) on Monday, a measure the president announced to protect the country from “foreign terrorists.”
The current travel restriction affects Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
People from seven additional countries, including Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela, will face certain restrictions on admission.
Trump, a Republican, said the countries subject to the most severe restrictions were determined to harbour a “large-scale presence of terrorists,” fail to cooperate on visa security, have an inability to verify travellers’ identities, as well as inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories and high rates of visa overstays in the United States.
He cited last Sunday’s incident in Boulder, Colorado, in which an Egyptian national tossed a gasoline bomb into a crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators as an example of why the new curbs are needed. But Egypt is not part of the travel ban.
The travel ban forms part of Trump’s policy to restrict immigration into the United States and is reminiscent of a similar move in his first term when he barred travellers from seven Muslim-majority nations.
Officials and residents in countries whose citizens will soon be banned expressed dismay and disbelief.
Chad President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno said he had instructed his government to stop granting visas to US citizens in response to Trump’s action.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“Chad has neither planes to offer nor billions of dollars to give, but Chad has its dignity and its pride,” he said in a Facebook post, referring to countries such as Qatar, which gifted the US a luxury airplane for Trump’s use and promised to invest billions of dollars in the US.
Afghans who worked for the US or US-funded projects and were hoping to resettle in the US expressed fear that the travel ban would force them to return to their country, where they could face reprisal from the Taliban.
Democratic US lawmakers also voiced concern about the policies.
“Trump’s travel ban on citizens from over 12 countries is draconian and unconstitutional,” said US Representative Ro Khanna on social media late on Thursday. “People have a right to seek asylum.”
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