The White House has released new travel restrictions, indefinitely banning travel and emigration from several countries and severely restricting it from others.
From the NY Times—
Starting next month, most citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea will be banned from entering the United States, Mr. Trump said in a proclamation released Sunday night. Citizens of Iraq and some groups of people in Venezuela who seek to visit the United States will face restrictions or heightened scrutiny.
Mr. Trump’s original travel ban caused turmoil at airports in January and set off a furious legal challenge to the president’s authority. It was followed in March by a revised ban, which expired on Sunday even as the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments about its constitutionality on Oct. 10. The new order — Chad, North Korea and Venezuela are new to the list of affected countries and Sudan has been dropped — will take effect Oct. 18.
Key Facts
Countries Affected:
- Chad – total ban
- Iran – student visa exempted
- Iraq – heightened scrutiny, but no full ban
- Libya – total ban
- North Korea – total ban
- Somalia – visitation to USA permitted, no emigration
- Syria – total ban
- Venezuela – select government officials and their families
- Yemen – total ban
A couple things to note. First, valid visas will not be revoked for citizens from the banned countries. That means students or H1-B workers will be able to remain in America. But once their visas expire, they will be subject to the travel ban.
The new rules also do not cover refugees. The Administration is forming a new set of rules concerning refugees that will be announced later this week.
These new rules go into effect October 18, 2017.
Legal Challenges
You can bet there will be legal challenges to this new ban, just like the two previous iterations of the travel ban. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on October 10, 2017. I suspect this travel ban will withstand more scrutiny than the two previous bans considering it is more narrow and based on “rigorous evaluation” of each country, even if such analysis is greatly biased.
CONCLUSION
No commentary from me right now on the new ban. Understand that those with valid visas will not be affected by the new restrictions. We don’t hear a lot about Chad, but the Administration claims the country “does not adequately share public-safety and terrorism-related information.” Interestingly, the order also calls Chad an “important and valuable counterterrorism partner”…
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