President Donald Trump brought back a move from his first term this week when he issued an executive order banning travelers from certain – mostly Muslim majority – countries from entering the U.S. Audacy reached out to an expert to discuss.
“This order affects visitors and would be immigrants from 19 countries all together an outright ban on nationals of 12 countries Afghanistan Myanmar, Chad the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen,” ABC News national correspondent Steve Portnoy told KYW Newsradio. “And, in addition to that outright ban there are restrictions that would limit entries from seven other countries including Cuba and Venezuela.”
In the executive order, Trump said that he “must act to protect the national security and national interest of the United States and its people.” It added that “nationals of some countries also pose significant risks of overstaying their visas in the United States,” and argued that those nationals also increase immigration and law enforcement burdens.
“It’s an extension of a policy you remember from the first Trump term -- the travel ban that was ultimately upheld by the supreme court,” said Portnoy.
This time, the situation in the Middle East is different than when the first travel ban was announced in 2017. Since Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, the area around Gaza has been at war, including Israel, Hamas and other groups such as Hezbollah.
Portnoy noted that this ban comes on the heels of an attack on a pro-Israel march in Colorado. He said that Trump referenced the attack in a video statement.
Per the U.S. Department of Justice, it has filed charges against Mohammed Sabry Soliman for the Colorado attack. He has been charged with a federal hate crime in addition to state charges for attempted murder.
“This vile anti-Semitic violence comes just weeks after the horrific murder of two young Jewish Americans in Washington DC. We will never tolerate this kind of hatred. We refuse to accept a world in which Jewish Americans are targeted for who they are and what they believe,” said U.S.
Attorney General Pam Bondi.
While the ban came shortly after the Colorado attack, Portnoy also noted that “there is no ban on arrivals from Egypt where the suspect in that case was born.”