The Trump administration late Wednesday announced a total ban on entry to the United States for citizens of 12 countries, including family members of refugees.
The ban includes partial restrictions on seven other countries in a sweeping move that’s much more restrictive than the travel ban implemented on Muslim-majority countries during President Donald Trump’s first term.
Expected to go into effect this coming Monday, the executive order targets mostly Muslim, African nations by fully suspending immigration and nonimmigrant visas for citizens of Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen who do not already have legal status in the U.S. The ban allows exceptions for permanent residents or green card holders and those with valid visas.
The ban imposes further restrictions on residents of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela to protect U.S. citizens “from aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes,” according to the order.
Advocates said the ban is particularly cruel for more than 600 displaced Afghans who supported the U.S. in the war in Afghanistan and fled their home country in hopes of safe refuge in Vermont after the Taliban took control in August 2021. The majority of them have joined the workforce and contribute to society and the local economy in positive ways, advocates said.
The order is “blatantly racist, and rooted in unfounded fear and political posturing,” Molly Gray, executive director of the Afghan Alliance in Burlington, said in a statement this week.
“It is hard to put into words the absolute horror of this travel ban for Afghan refugees hoping for relocation to the United States from Pakistan pursuant to recent court orders,” she wrote. “It is hard to quantify the depravity, bigotry and short-sightedness of such a brazen abandonment of those individuals who risked their lives, over a 21 year period, for the United States in Afghanistan.”
The Afghan Alliance recently announced a partnership with No One Left Behind, a Virginia-based nonprofit, to help expedite the evacuation and resettlement of vulnerable Afghan Special Immigrant Visa holders ahead of the anticipated travel ban.
U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., last week joined his colleagues to demand answers from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State on its “devastating” decision to terminate temporary protected status for Afghan nationals living in the U.S..
“The grave conditions that forced Afghan nationals to flee and seek refuge in the U.S. following the return of the Taliban to power remain,” states the letter signed by 100 legislators. “Because of this harsh reality, forcing Afghan nationals in the U.S. to return to Afghanistan would be reckless and inhumane, and would threaten the safety and well-being of thousands of individuals and families, especially women and girls.”
At least two new Afghans and several hundred asylum seekers from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Ukraine who resettled in Vermont were set to lose their humanitarian parole protections due to recent federal orders. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a stay on the order, ending the Biden-era program.
A previous order froze federal funding for refugee support affecting local relocation agency efforts. It further tried to deport Venezuelan migrants under the war-time Alien Enemies Act of 1798, an effort a federal judge last month struck down as unlawful.
While many of the administration’s recent efforts remain tied up in court, they are a reflection of Trump’s campaign promise to potentially carry out “the largest deportation program in American history.”
Advocates said these orders neither secure the future of the legal residents who passed the strongest checks nor improve the security, stabilization and sustainability of the nations targeted in Trump’s travel ban.
The ban makes life “more problematic” for citizens of those countries in the U.S. and abroad, said Yvonne Lodico, executive director of the Grace Initiative Global, a nonprofit that provides services to several refugee groups including Haitians and Afghans living in Vermont.
“Persons seeking asylum by international law are being refused entry to the U.S., or asylum status not granted. Families are kept apart. The inherent right of each human being to dignity and respect is being replaced by an atmosphere of threat and fear. Immigrant support groups are being eviscerated by funding cuts,”Lodico said. “Our hope remains in the warmth and humanity of individuals rallying to counter this bad news.”
Grace Initiative Global is planning a program at the United Nations on June 20, World Refugee Day, to focus on the security and stabilization of Haiti, she said.
Kristen Connors, a lawyer who has been working with clients in Vermont with pending asylum cases, said she continues to be shocked at how “flippant, cruel, and arbitrary” the restrictions are and called the language used in the latest order “racist and xenophobic.”
“I’m saddened because I do not think that this proclamation will make us safer as a country, I think it will make us less safe, and less prosperous,” she said. “I hope this spurs more people in Vermont to learn about our current immigration laws, and about systems of global migration, and I hope this prompts people to step up and support real, humane, and meaningful immigration reform.”
Two of her Afghan clients erroneously received federal letters telling them they had seven days to leave the United States and their work authorizations would be terminated. This happened despite them having employment authorization based on their humanitarian parole status, Connors said. Both were paroled in the spring of 2024 with the cases pending in court. They can lawfully remain in the country until their cases have been adjudicated, but the letters were nerve-wracking for them, she said
The orders suspending long-standing refugee programs and funding have been hard to digest and adds to the uncertainty resettled groups already live with, said Nathan Virag, immigration lawyer for Association of Africans Living in Vermont, based in Burlington.
He said the organization, which helps an average of 800 people annually across the state, has been fielding increased calls from Afghans, people from African countries, India, Nepal, Venezuelans and Ecuadorians on how they can protect themselves, especially in interactions with immigration authorities.
“There’s a lot of fear going around,” Virag said. “The unique thing is, even people who were lawfully admitted here — refugees, green card holders and people who have applied for asylum — they’re scared and wonder what’s going to happen to them.”
