Trump's Travel Ban Creates Limited Loopholes for Challengers

The Trump administration’s
travel ban
offers a intricate scenario for supporters of immigration who have contested earlier attempts by President Trump to bar specific foreign nationals from entering the U.S.

Trump needed multiple bites at the apple during his first term before the Supreme Court upheld the third version of his so-called Muslim ban in 2018.

His latest version is
more sweeping
, targeting 19 countries instead of seven. It’s also more narrow in the exceptions that would allow people to skirt the new restrictions.

Trump’s Supreme Court-approved travel ban was finally able to win over the courts with the argument it was needed on national security grounds.

However, his most recent travel restriction also cites visa overstaying statistics as justification for prohibiting travelers from certain countries from visiting the U.S.

Experts told The Hill that this addition might create an opportunity for potential legal challenges.

“The reasons provided in the directive extend well past those related to national security,” stated Ahilan Arulanantham, who serves as co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at UCLA School of Law.

He observed that when the Supreme Court supported Trump’s initial travel ban, “their focus was nearly solely on national security-based reasons.”

These reasons have nothing to do with national security whatsoever; they’re purely about immigration policies. … This certainly presents a possible legal weakness.

Trump’s travel ban places full restrictions on citizens from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen

.

It also imposes partial limitations on seven additional nations: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

For certain nations, the Trump administration’s recent prohibition points to inadequate “screening and vetting procedures,” which prevent U.S. embassy personnel from assessing visa applicants properly.

However, the executive order frequently cites the visa overstaying rates of various countries—the proportion of individuals from these nations who stay in the U.S. longer than permitted by their visas.

“It’s simply a form of collective punishment. None of the individuals barred by this executive order have done anything wrong personally, nor does anyone suspect them individually of planning to do something wrong,” stated Adam Bates, an attorney with the International Refugee Assistance Project.

It’s simply a form of group punishment. ‘We lack faith in your nation. We distrust your government. We mistrust you for no cause besides the place of your birth—not due to any actions taken by you, whether past, present, or future.’

Raha Wala, who serves as the vice president for strategy and partnerships at the National Immigration Law Center, stated that these discrepancies are expected to play a role in the upcoming lawsuit.

“One of the significant flaws with this updated, broader ban is that it lacks consistency. For instance, people coming from Canada have some of the highest rates of overstaying visas; however, they do not appear on the banned list,” he explained.

When announcing the fresh restrictions, officials pointed out the case of an Egyptian individual detained following an assault on protesters in Boulder, Colorado, emphasizing calls for the liberation of individuals being held captive by Hamas. The accused, named Mohamed Soliman, had applied for asylum soon after arriving but failed to maintain legal status beyond his original visa period.

However, the administration chose not to include Egypt in its travel ban. This decision led Wala to argue that the ban appears arbitrary and indiscriminate, suggesting instead that it aims to prohibit or limit individuals from countries that President Trump may have personal issues with.

He mentioned that the restriction would unfairly affect “many countries with large populations of Black people, Brown people, Asian people, and Latino people.”

Trump has supported excluding Egypt.

Egypt is a nation with which we interact quite intensely. They manage their affairs well,” Trump stated to journalists at the Oval Office earlier this month. “The same cannot be said for some of the other nations we engage with.

Arulanantham stated that the legal challenge will probably encompass an examination of visa overstaying statistics for nations not covered by the prohibition.

“I believe it’s quite troubling to presume that ‘since some individuals from Burundi overstayed their visas, we must assume that everyone else will do so and thus bar all of them.’ This stance is clearly morally indefensible; it’s blatantly prejudiced. However, if one adopts such an attitude, they must then inquire whether these truly stand as exceptional cases,” he questioned.

Trump has already moved to lift protections on citizens from a number of the countries on the travel ban list, such as Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela.

Ex-President Biden introduced Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which offers protection against deportation, to immigrants from Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Haiti. Additionally, he initiated a parole program allowing individuals from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to enter the country for two years with permission to work, provided they obtained a financial supporter based in the U.S.

Trump has subsequently abandoned the parole initiative and ended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nations now part of the travel ban. These actions have faced legal challenges.

When eliminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS), Trump contended that Afghans, Haitians, and Venezuelans no longer deserve the short-term sanctuary these protections provide for individuals escaping civil strife or catastrophes.

Currently, all three nations are experiencing significant political upheavals and are grappling with serious issues of food scarcity.

For ending Temporary Protected Status, they consider Afghanistan as a safe, stable, and secure nation. However, to justify denying Afghans visas, they portray Afghanistan as a terrorism-controlled failed state,” Bates stated. “Their statements are contradictory.

The State Department representative Tommy Pigott justified the restriction as a step for national security along with “more comprehensive actions taken by this administration regarding various visa matters.”

“This is crucial for national security,” he stated during a press briefing earlier this month.

Can we assess individuals entering our country effectively, as this has consistently been a key focus since the start of this administration? Are we able to confidently assert that those arriving in the United States undergo thorough screening? Do these nations possess reliable mechanisms to verify their background accurately? Should we rely on the information provided to us?

Although immigration supporters were certain the revised travel restriction was biased, they remained uncertain about the likelihood of winning a legal battle against it.

“It is definitely plausible, highly probable even, that the Supreme Court upholds this,” Arulanantham stated, pointing out that such an action could lead to “highly significant consequences for immigrant communities” and result in family separations.

Wala also voiced some concerns.

“I don’t want to overhype the case, so to speak,” he stated.

Are we extremely certain that this specific Supreme Court will rule correctly on this issue? Not really, since they previously supported what we believe remains an unconstitutional restriction.

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