Nationality-based bans in this administration were introduced in June. By mid December they grew to about 40 countries.

Behind bureaucratic excuses for the bans, which I will take up in a posting tomorrow, the language of the December 16 White House proclamation reveals a xenophobic mindset.  The United States “must ensure that admitted aliens do not intend to threaten its citizens; undermine or destabilize its culture, government or institutions, or founding principles; or advocate, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists or other threats to our national security.”

Here is a history of nationality-based bans starting with the first Trump administration.

This month’s action applies the Supreme Court’s June 2018 approval in Trump v. Hawaii (2018) for the government to apply nationality-based travel bans. At issue was the Presidential Proclamation 9645 – the so-called Muslim bans. This administration has worked up for wider bans a bureaucratic logic that applies like a sledgehammer.

It blows up our relations with countries as prominent as Nigeria and Cuba. There are 500,000 Nigerian-born and 1.7 million Cuban-born persons living in the U.S.

Thanks to David Bier of the Cato Institute, we see the draconian effect of the bans on long-term immigration and temporary business/tourism numbers.  The bans cover countries accounting for one billion persons.  Nationals of these countries have recently accounted for about 125,000 of the annual number of persons who come with or with the expectation of a permanent residence and about 300,000 annual business or tourist visitors. Based on recent experience, third of entries from Africa and a quarter from Asia are affected.

The bans apply to spouses and minor children of American citizens. They apply to persons – such as a professor in a European university – who is a national of a listed country and visits the U.S. regularly for research. It does not matter if the person has had little or nothing to do with their country of origin for years. It applies to sports fans wanting to come to the U.S. to support their national soccer team in the 2026 World Cup, in violation of assurances to FIFA.