WASHINGTON, D.C. – As tensions continue to rise over the President’s immigration enforcement, a new travel ban for citizens from a dozen countries took effect on Monday. The ban is on countries predominately from Africa and the Middle East. There are partial restrictions on seven other countries.
“I think fundamentally it’s about enforcing our laws,” said Tommy Pigott, deputy principal spokesperson with the State Department.
Citing national security and terrorism concerns, the State Department said they want to make sure the US is vetting who is coming into the country.
“The second concern is visa overstays,” said Pigott. “And what that means is if you have a visa and there s a time period on that visa and if you overstay your time period, you are then in this country illegally.”
According to a 2024 Homeland Security report, out of the 39-million people expected to leave the US after their visa expired in 2023, about 1.45 percent overstayed their visa.
In the President’s first term, he issued an executive order denying entry to citizens of mainly Muslim countries. That order was challenged in the courts and the policy went through major revisions.
This new ban is causing some pushback, especially among resettlement groups.
Haiti, who is on the travel ban list, hasn’t had access to regular visa services a the US Embassy in Port-Au-Prince since before the pandemic, which has created huge delays and backlogs processing applications. Problems within the Caribbean country have only grown following a rise in gang violence, political instability and economic crisis. Their Transitional Presidential Council released a statement saying they recognize the sovereign right of the US to protect their borders but they express reservations regarding the measure, adding it will likely affect all Haitians indiscriminately. The council said they are strengthening Haiti’s borders and hopes the administration removes them from the list.
We asked the State Department about the pushback from countries:
“This is a county by country determination, a process that began at the beginning of this administration to address those concerns,” said Pigott. “Ultimately this is a national security imperative. While this is a country by country basis, each visa is a case by case basis. There are several exemptions listed in the proclamation itself. On top of all of that, we want to see these concerns addressed. The proclamation goes into the fact that 90 days from now it calls for an additional analysis and then 180 days thereafter. So we want to see these concerns addressed.”
The State Department also adds they are also seeing varying degrees of cooperation in terms of countries accepting their own nationals back into their country who are illegally present in the US.
