Trump Travel Ban Punishes Victims of the U.S. War Machine

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a proclamation banning travelers from countries from entering the United States and partially restricting visitors from seven other nations We will restore the expedition ban several people call it the Trump voyage ban and keep the radical Islamic terrorists out of our country that was upheld by the Supreme Court wrote Trump in a written declaration The restriction goes into effect on Monday June The full ban applies to foreign nationals from Afghanistan Burma Chad the Republic of the Congo Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Haiti Iran Libya Somalia Sudan and Yemen The partial ban applies to people from Burundi Cuba Laos Sierra Leone Togo Turkmenistan and Venezuela In a video address posted on social media Trump stated a current terror attack in Boulder Colorado underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas He added We don t want em The man charged with that attack is from Egypt which is not one of the countries listed in the passage ban The list overlaps with the sites of U S military and CIA misadventures stretching back more than a century including Afghanistan Cuba Haiti Iran Laos Libya Somalia and Yemen The inclusion of Afghanistan angered numerous who have worked to resettle its people in America The movement ban makes exceptions for Afghans on Special Immigrant Visas or SIV a classification granted to people who worked closely with the U S executive during the two-decade-long war there That still leaves multiple former allies and their families on the outside looking in The ban also comes as the Department of Homeland Guard s termination of Temporary Protected Status or TPS for Afghanistan is scheduled to take effect on July Related Who Lost Afghanistan During America s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan the U S leadership helped evacuate around Afghans who aided U S forces ranging from interpreters to CIA-trained fighters and their families including members of so-called Zero Units implicated in the killings of civilians Afghanistan was also one of the largest sources of resettled refugees with about arrivals in a -month period through September Trump suspended refugee resettlement on his first day back in office Andrew Sullivan a U S Army veteran and the executive director of No One Left Behind which advocates on behalf of SIV applicants expressed gratitude for the Trump administration s exemption for Afghan Special Immigrant Visa holders However there are still a multitude of allies who served shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States who are being left behind because they do not qualify for the SIV effort he declared This includes those who were injured in the line of duty and were unable to complete a full year of system the women and men of the Afghan National Army who trained and served with U S Special Forces and countless more People in other nations fall victim to the same cycle trusting U S promises only to be abandoned when perceived strategic interests shift Trump s Afghan abandonment isn t unique however It follows in a long tradition of American desertion of wartime allies that includes partners from Southeast Asia like Vietnam Laos and Cambodia to the Middle East This isn t a Trump-era phenomenon it s a pattern that spans decades from Vietnam to Afghanistan and from Kurds to Ukrainians declared Erik Sperling of Just Foreign Strategy an advocacy group critical of mainstream Washington foreign approach It s no secret that ostensible American partners in the growing world often end up worse off as a development of Washington s actions Yet time and again people in other nations fall victim to the same cycle trusting U S promises only to be abandoned when perceived strategic interests shift Afghanistan was not part of Trump s first-term trip ban but in the time since fell to the Taliban when the U S withdrew its forces in under the Biden administration This resulted from a peace deal with the Taliban signed by the Trump administration in Trump wrote that Afghanistan lacks a competent or cooperative central authority for issuing passports or civil documents and it does not have appropriate screening and vetting measures He also cited its visa overstay rates as a reason for the nation s inclusion in the new journey ban Sullivan announced numerous U S allies would be harmed by the restrictions They stood by us in war but now face danger because of their system with no clear way out he stated The Intercept We must keep our promise to them as well Earlier this week around members of Congress called on the Trump Administration to reverse its decision to end TPS for Afghans This decision is devastating for resettled Afghan nationals in the United States who have fled widespread violence economic instability challenging humanitarian conditions and human rights abuses in their home country they wrote noting that it would negatively impact approximately Afghan nationals Plenty of of these Afghans fearlessly served as strong allies to the United States military during the war in Afghanistan and we cannot blatantly disregard their amenity We respectfully ask that you redesignate Afghanistan for TPS to ensure Afghan nationals in the U S are not forced to return to devastating humanitarian civic and economic conditions Sperling explained the United States should be upfront about its history of abandoning its partners when they outlive their usefulness If American policymakers are serious about building durable soft power around the world they should reckon with this history and ensure that future allies understand the risks before taking U S advice he described The Intercept noting that America s latest exercise in ally abandonment may have far reaching consequences Various Afghans reasonably relied on U S promises and put their trust in the U S -backed plans for their country he explained Turning our back on them now is both immoral as well as a strategic blunder that will undermine U S interests in the region for the foreseeable future The post Trump Excursion Ban Punishes Casualties of the U S War Machine appeared first on The Intercept