(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
President Donald Trump expanded his administration’s travel ban to several more countries on Tuesday, including barring Palestinians from entering the United States.
The Presidential Proclamation said the new restrictions are being put in place to protect the U.S. “from national security and public safety threats.”
Here is what the proclamation said about blocking Palestinians:
Several U.S.-designated terrorist groups operate actively in the West Bank or Gaza Strip and have murdered American citizens.
Also, the recent war in these areas likely resulted in compromised vetting and screening abilities. In light of these factors, and considering the weak or nonexistent control exercised over these areas by the PA, individuals attempting to travel on PA-issued or endorsed travel documents cannot currently be properly vetted and approved for entry into the United States.
Beyond Palestinians, the Trump Administration is also banning people from five other countries — Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, and Syria.
The restrictions are necessary, the proclamation said, based on the lack of “sufficient information to assess the risks” posed by foreign nationals from the banned countries.
Trump’s proclamation added a strong “terrorist presence,” as well as criminal and “extremist activity,” leading to an overall lack of stability in the banned countries — making it difficult to vet those people who come to the U.S.
The new countries on the ban list join 12 others that the Trump Administration blocked in June. Those countries are: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
“It is the president’s duty to take action to ensure that those seeking to enter our country will not harm the American people,” the proclamation added.
Another 15 countries had partial travel sanctions imposed on them on Tuesday. Those are: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Tuesday’s update comes after Trump recently said he did not want Somalis like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) — whom he called “garbage” and a “terrible person” — in the U.S.
“They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” the president said. “Some will say that is not ‘politically correct.’ I don’t care. Their country is no good for a reason.”
Trump’s comments were made a few days after The New York Times reported some Somalis living in Minnesota orchestrated a fraud scheme that, according to federal prosecutors, stole “more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money.”
