Trump bans citizens from 12 countries, including Myanmar, from travelling to US

WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Wednesday (Jun 4) banning the nationals of 12 countries from entering the United States, saying the move was needed to protect against "foreign terrorists" and other security threats.

The countries affected are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

The entry of people from seven other countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela, will 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 as threats emerge around the world.

The proclamation is effective on Jun 9 at 12.01am Eastern Time. Visas issued before that date will not be revoked, the order said.

Trump 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 and have an inability to verify travellers' identities, inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories and high rates of visa overstays in the US.

The countries facing the total ban were found "to be deficient with regards to screening and vetting and determined to pose a very high risk to the United States", according to a statement provided by the White House.

"We cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter the United States," Trump said.

He cited Sunday's incident in Boulder, Colorado in which a man tossed a gasoline bomb into a crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators as an example of why the new restrictions are needed.

An Egyptian national, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, has been charged in the attack. Federal officials said Soliman had overstayed his tourist visa and had an expired work permit - although Egypt is not on the list of countries facing travel limits.

"The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted," Trump said in a video message from the Oval Office posted on X.

"We don't want them."

Trump compared the new measures to the "powerful" ban he imposed on a number of mainly Muslim countries in his first term, which he said had stopped the US suffering attacks that happened in Europe.

"We will not let what happened in Europe happen in America," Trump said.

Rumours of a new Trump travel ban had circulated following the attack in Colorado, with his administration vowing to pursue "terrorists" living in the US on visas.

"President Trump is fulfilling his promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors that want to come to our country and cause us harm," White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson said on X.

"These commonsense restrictions are country-specific and include places that lack proper vetting, exhibit high visa overstay rates, or fail to share identity and threat information."

BEING IN THE US A "BIG RISK"

Somalia immediately pledged to work with the US to address security issues.

"Somalia values its longstanding relationship with the United States and stands ready to engage in dialogue to address the concerns raised," Dahir Hassan Abdi, the Somali ambassador to the United States, said in a statement.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, a close ally of President Nicolas Maduro, responded on Wednesday evening by describing the US government as fascist and warning Venezuelans of being 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."

A spokesperson for the Taliban-led Afghan foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment on how it would handle the thousands of Afghans waiting in Islamabad who had been in the pipeline for US resettlement.

Calls early on Thursday to the spokesperson of Myanmar's military government were not answered.

The travel ban threatens to upend a 31-year-old Myanmar teacher's plan to join a US State Department exchange programme, which was slated to start in September.

"It is not easy to apply nor get accepted as we needed several recommendation letters," said the teacher, who currently lives in Thailand and asked not to be named because her visa application is still outstanding.

"In my case, I would get to work at universities that provide digital education," she said, adding that she had not been updated by the programme after Trump's announcement.

The foreign ministry of Laos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump's directive is part of an immigration crackdown that he launched 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, as well as efforts to deny enrollments of some foreign students and deport others.

He previewed his plan in an October 2023 speech, pledging to restrict people from the Gaza Strip, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and "anywhere else that threatens our security".

Trump issued an executive order on Jan 20 requiring intensified security vetting of any foreigners seeking admission to the US to detect national security threats.

That order directed several cabinet members to submit a list of countries from which travel should be partly or fully suspended because their "vetting and screening information is so deficient".

In March, Reuters reported that the Trump administration was considering travel restrictions on dozens of countries.

During his first term in office, Trump had announced a ban on travellers from seven majority-Muslim 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 the ban in 2021, calling it "a stain on our national conscience".

David Super, Carmack Waterhouse professor of law and economics at Georgetown University Law Center, told CNA’s Asia First that the allegations given by the Trump administration as reasons for including these 12 countries in the travel ban, are vague.

“They release a memo with just a line or two about each country that don't say much of anything. (It's) very hard for countries to dispute that,” he said, noting that there is very little rationale for how these nations were added to the list. 

The Georgetown University law expert added that affected states may need to provide concessions as they negotiate any removal from Trump’s travel ban. 

“I think it's a matter of giving the administration something that it wants and often that something is flattery. Occasionally, there may be some bilateral matter that they want to sort out with that country and are using this for leverage to get that assistance,” he said.

Super added that the travel ban could also hurt the US economically if countries on the list apply reciprocal restrictions on visas for US citizens.
 
“A lot of Americans who travel to these countries are trying to set up business deals, so this further (narrows) our business engagement with the rest of the world, which will make us poor,” he said.