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Donald Trump’s latest travel ban isn’t about making America safe. It’s about making cruelty normal.
The administration wants us to believe this is a sober, considered security measure. Twelve countries blacklisted. Seven more partially restricted.
The justification? In Trump’s words: ‘We cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter the United States.’
The accusation seems to be that these countries pose a threat to the United States based on historical precedent.
Let’s take that at face value for a moment.
Myanmar, for example, is in a state of disarray. The UK Government advises against travel due to civil unrest, armed conflict, and arbitrary enforcement of local laws.
So, it is possible that it has no functioning national vetting system.
However, as far as I know, there has never been a single incident of a person from Myanmar carrying out a terrorist attack on US soil. Not one.
The people fleeing from Myanmar are escaping widespread violence, not inciting it. So what exactly is Trump protecting against?
The answer isn’t found in intelligence briefings or airport protocols. It’s found in a different kind of calculation – a political one.
It’s a message to Trump’s base that the world – especially those with different faiths or colours – is dangerous. That only he can protect them and that empathy is a threat to be eliminated, not a value to be upheld.
It comes after the Trump administration sought to end deportation protections for 350,000 Venezuelans in the US. They were (and some still are, after a federal judge blocked the move) allowed to remain under a scheme that permits people to work and live there if their home countries are deemed unsafe.
The US Government’s own assessment of Venezuela is that citizens and tourists are at risk of ‘wrongful detention, torture in detention, terrorism, kidnapping, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, crime, civil unrest, and poor health infrastructure’.
Cruelty isn’t the side effect. It’s the point.
It will tear apart families mid-airport transfer and strand people who have already sold everything for the chance of safety or opportunity.
Foreign students who want to study or take part in exchange programmes are on the chopping block – a move that, I’m sure, has nothing to do with the legal battle between Harvard and the Trump Administration who froze billions of dollars of federal funding after accusing it of failing to root out antisemitism on campus.
And let’s talk about who’s not on the list. Egypt, for example, where the suspect in the recent Boulder attack came from. Not included. This is despite Trump specifically mentioning this terrorist attack as a justification for implementing the new travel ban.
Saudi Arabia, whose nationals carried out 9/11? Also not included.
Those banned are often fleeing conflict, violence or persecution for their gender, sexual orientation, or beliefs.
All of which makes one thing clear: This isn’t about risk, it’s about optics.
By design or naivety, women and girls, whose reproductive rights have already been weaponised and criminalised by Trump, and LGBTQ+ individuals, whose protections have also been stripped away, are now the targets of this performative and punitive ban.
Even setting aside the moral argument, the legal case is clear.
No one is advocating complete open borders, but if travellers have the proper documentation, how can you justify turning them away?
When Trump introduced a similar order in 2017, targeting seven Muslim-majority countries, it was condemned as a ‘Muslim ban’ and tied up in endless legal challenges.
President Joe Biden repealed it in 2021.
This time, Trump says the rationale for the countries chosen is based on visa overstay rates or political instability. But, in my view, the evidence doesn’t back this up.
The White House wants you to believe this is a temporary measure, a pause until things can be properly assessed, but there’s no transparency, no end date, and no consistent criteria.
This is, as usual, theatre. Cruelty as a campaign tactic and the weaponisation of lives as a headline generator.
Theatre has become the new normal for US politics, but we should still call it what it is.
Punitive. Senseless. And above all, ineffective.
A policy that punishes students, bans refugees, and abandons families is not national security. It’s moral submission.
This isn’t border control; it’s moral control in Trump’s America, where kindness is weakness.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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