The Trump administration on June 4, 2025, announced travel restrictions focusing on 19 nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, together with most of the world’s poorest nations. All journey is banned from 12 of those nations, with partial restrictions on journey from the remaining.
The presidential proclamation, entitled “Limiting the Entry of International Nationals to Defend the US from International Terrorists and Different Nationwide Safety and Public Security Threats,” is aimed toward “nations all through the world for which vetting and screening data is so poor as to warrant a full or partial suspension on the entry or admission of nationals from these nations.”
In a video that accompanied the proclamation, President Donald Trump mentioned: “The latest terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the intense risks posed to our nation by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted.”
The most recent journey ban reimposes restrictions on most of the nations that have been included on travel bans in Trump’s first term, together with a number of new nations.
However this journey ban, like the sooner ones, won’t considerably enhance nationwide safety and public security in the US. That’s as a result of migrants account for a minuscule portion of violence within the U.S. And migrants from the newest journey ban nations account for a fair smaller portion, based on data that I have collected. The suspect in Colorado, for instance, is from Egypt, which isn’t on the journey ban record.
As a scholar of political sociology, I don’t imagine Trump’s newest journey ban is about nationwide safety. Relatively, I’d argue, it’s primarily about utilizing nationwide safety as an excuse to disclaim visas to nonwhite candidates.
Terrorism and public security
Prior to now 5 years, the U.S. has witnessed more than 100,000 homicides. Political violence by militias and different ideological actions accounted for 354 fatalities, based on an initiative known as the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, which tracks armed battle world wide. That’s lower than 1% of the nation’s murder victims. And international terrorism accounted for lower than 1% of this 1%, according to my data.
The Trump administration says the U.S. can not appropriately vet visa candidates in nations with uncooperative governments or underdeveloped safety techniques. That declare is fake.
The State Division and different authorities companies do a thorough job of vetting visa applicants, even in nations the place there isn’t a U.S. embassy, based on an evaluation by the CATO Institute.
The U.S. authorities has subtle methods for identifying potential threats. They embody detailed documentation necessities, interviews with consular officers and clearance by nationwide safety companies. And it rejects greater than 1 in 6 visa purposes, with ever-increasing procedures for detecting fraud.
AP Photo/Kathy Willens
The thoroughness of the visa evaluate course of is obvious within the numbers.
Approved foreign-born residents of the U.S. are far less likely than U.S.-born residents to have interaction in legal exercise. And unauthorized migrants are even less likely to commit crimes. Communities with extra migrants – approved and unauthorized – have related or slightly lower crime rates than communities with fewer migrants.
If vetting have been as poor as Trump’s executive order claims, we might count on to see a big variety of terrorist plots from nations on the journey ban record. However we don’t.
Of the 4 million U.S. residents from the latest travel ban countries, I’ve documented solely six who were involved in violent extremism prior to now 5 years.
Solely one in all them engaged in violence within the U.S.: an Afghan man who killed a Pakistani Shiite Muslim immigrant in New Mexico in 2022, and is charged with killing two others.
Such a handful of zealots with rifles or do-it-yourself explosives might be life-altering for victims and their households, however they don’t symbolize a menace to U.S. nationwide safety.
Degrading the idea of nationwide safety
Trump has been attempting for years to show immigration right into a nationwide safety difficulty.
In his first major speech on national security in 2016, Trump targeted on the “dysfunctional immigration system which doesn’t allow us to know who we let into our nation.”
His primary example was an act of terrorism by a person who was born within the U.S.
The primary Trump administration’s national security strategy, issued in December 2017, prioritized jihadist terrorist organizations that “radicalize remoted people” as “probably the most harmful menace to the Nation” – not armies, not one other 9/11, however remoted people.
If the journey ban is just not actually going to enhance nationwide safety or public security, then what’s it about?
AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
Linking immigration to nationwide safety appears to serve two long-standing Trump priorities. First is his effort to make American more white, consistent with widespread bias among his supporters towards nonwhite immigrants.
Keep in mind Trump’s insults to Mexicans and Muslims in his escalator speech announcing his presidential campaign in 2015. He has additionally expressed a desire for white immigrants from Norway in 2018 and South Africa in 2025.
Trump has repeatedly associated himself with nationalists who view immigration by nonwhites as a hazard to white supremacy.
Second, invoking nationwide safety permits Trump to pursue this aim with out the necessity for accountability, since Congress and the courts have historically deferred to the chief department on nationwide safety points.
Trump additionally claims national security justifications for tariffs and different insurance policies that he has declared national emergencies, in a bid to keep away from criticism by the general public and oversight by the opposite branches of presidency.
However this oversight is critical in a democratic system to make sure that immigration coverage relies on information.
This story was corrected on June 9, 2025, to make clear that some Latin America nations have been included on President Trump’s newest journey ban, that the creator examined the information of 4 million U.S. residents from the newest journey ban nations, and that six have been concerned in violent extremism prior to now 5 years.
