Why did Donald Trump order a ban on travellers from 12 countries?

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order banning travel to the United States for citizens of a dozen countries and put partial restrictions on citizens of seven other nations.

US President Donald Trump on the Truman balcony during a Summer soiree on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on Wednesday,(Bloomberg)

The executive order fully restricts and limits the entry of nationals from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.

Citizens of seven countries will have their entry partially restricted. The countries are Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Why Trump administration banned citizens of certain countries from entering US

Donald Trump said he had signed the travel ban because of an attack on a Jewish protest in Colorado that authorities blamed on a man they say was in the country illegally.

“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.

The White House also justified the restrictions put in place by Trump’s executive order. The reasons cited by the administration include Afghanistan’s Taliban control, Iran and Cuba’s state-sponsored terrorism, and Haiti’s influx of illegal migrants during the Joe Biden administration. Countries like Chad and Eritrea were flagged for disregarding US immigration laws. The former has a 49.54 percent B1/B2 visa overstay rate, while the latter’s F/M/J visa overstay rate stands at 55.43 percent.

Partial restrictions apply to Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela, limiting immigrant and nonimmigrant visas (B-1, B-2, B-1/B-2, F, M, J) due to high overstay rates or insufficient law enforcement collaboration.

This is not the first time that Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning citizens of certain countries from entering the United States. During his first term in office from 2017, the Republican leader had announced a ban on travellers from seven majority-Muslim nations. That policy went through several iterations before it was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2018.

Democrat President Joe Biden, Trump’s successor and also his predecessor for his second term, repealed the executive order after taking office in 2021. According to Biden, the ban was “a stain on our national conscience.”