After the furore that greeted his earlier transfer ban, President Donald Trump has widen the ban in a move experts say will stand legal challenges.
The President’s new travel ban according to a proclamation issued on September 24, limits travel from a handful of countries. Whereas his previous orders sought to block all travel from the listed countries temporarily, this one is indefinite and imposes different restrictions for different countries.
The new ban restricts travel from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea. Certain government officials from Venezuela will also be barred.
The proclamation will go into effect on Oct. 18, could be less vulnerable to legal attack, scholars and other experts said, because it is the result of a months-long analysis of foreign vetting procedures by U.S. officials.
Within hours of Sunday’s proclamation, representatives for the Hawaii, New York and California attorneys general said their offices were reviewing the new restrictions. Advocacy organizations denounced it as more of the same.
“This is still a Muslim ban – they simply added three additional countries.” “Of those countries, Chad is majority Muslim, travel from North Korea is already basically frozen and the restrictions on Venezuela only affect government officials on certain visas,” says Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project.
While the previous ban targeted Muslim-majority nations Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan, the restrictions announced on Sunday include North Korea and Venezuela and omits Sudan altogether. It also allows some travelers from Somalia and Iran to enter the U.S.
The review also examined each country’s ability to issue reliable electronic passports and share security risk data with the U.S. Overall, 47 countries had problems, and 40 made improvements, including 11 that agreed to share information on known or suspected terrorists, Trump’s proclamation said.
