Today, Explained - President Trump's "Africa ban"

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

Vox's Nicole Narea explains how new immigration restrictions that will hit a quarter of Africa's population might be President Trump's version of diplomacy. (Transcript here.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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But the travel ban is back. In fact, it just got an update. So it's going to go into effect starting February 22nd, which is next Saturday. It got kind of buried in the news cycle a few weeks ago, but now it's really for real. Nicole Nerea covers immigration at Vox, and she's been covering travel ban 2.0. Six new countries are on the list. Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania are now being added, but the restrictions differ by country and only

affect people trying to permanently immigrate to the U.S. rather than all travelers. Okay. So what exactly will it mean for people from Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania? Immigrants from Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Eritrea, and Nigeria will no longer be able to obtain green cards or visas that provide a path to a green card. But they will be able to come to the U.S. on temporary visas, including those for foreign workers, tourists, and students. The proclamation also bars citizens of those countries as well as Sudan and Tanzania from participating in what's called the diversity visa lottery. It was introduced in 1986. as well as Sudan and Tanzania from participating in what's called the Diversity Visa Lottery.

It was introduced in 1986. That's a program that Trump has been trying to dismantle for years. And under that program, 50,000 applicants from countries with low levels of immigration to the U.S. are selected at random to be offered green cards. But refugees and existing visa holders won't be affected. So what's the reason President Trump is giving for expanding his so-called travel ban? We have to be safe. Our country has to be safe. You see what's going on in the world.

Our country has to be safe. So we have a very strong travel ban and we'll be adding a few countries to it. So the administration says it wants these countries to meet the U.S.'s security standards, which include sharing information with U.S. authorities and Interpol on criminals and terrorists, as well as issuing electronic passports in an effort to deter fraud. They basically want to prevent terrorists and other criminals from entering the U.S. And how real is the threat of terrorism from these six countries? The thing is, most of these countries are dealing with various forms of internal threats that don't necessarily pose an immediate threat to the American public.

Let's just take Boko Haram, the Islamic militant group in Nigeria, for example. It's been known to conduct deadly suicide bombings, kidnappings, generalized violence. There are some concerns among national security experts that the group's ties to the Islamic State could mean that it could start directing attacks at the U.S. And that's particularly given Nigeria's strong economic and diplomatic ties to the U.S. But the thing is, even if that turns out to be true, these new restrictions from the Trump administration, which are just blocking permanent immigrants, aren't going to stop terrorists. A terrorist could still theoretically come to the U.S. on a visitor visa. So it's not clear why this would make us any safer. So how hard will this hit Nigerian immigration?

There is a huge Nigerian diaspora in the U.S. Nigerians make up by far the largest population of African immigrants living in the U.S. They're about 327,000. The U.S. is also a huge source of remittances sent back to Nigeria, about 6 billion in 2017. So this would have a huge impact not only on Nigerian immigrants seeking to come to the U.S., but also their family abroad. And many of them continue to maintain very deep connections with their family in Nigeria, which is Africa's most populous nation and its largest economy. So is this like an attempt to sort of ban African immigration in a way? That's what a lot of advocates are calling this,

an African ban. The president has had a history of seeking to discriminate against African immigrants. The diversity visa lottery program that I mentioned earlier, that's a huge way for African migrants to come to the U.S. and for many of them the only way. So Trump has been trying to dismantle that for years. And that's sort of seen as a direct attack on African migration in particular. Trump has also said a lot of things about African migrants that maybe aren't worth repeating, but like that one thing, he said that he wanted to keep out Africans from shithole countries. Right. How can we forget? And this is just another big step in that direction?

Yeah. Trump has really prioritized welcoming immigrants from places like Norway and Western European countries. So this feels discriminatory. But that said, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan are not in Africa. How did they get added to the list? The Trump administration has provided the same rationale about these countries not complying with its security standards. The decision to include them is a bit surprising. So at least for Kyrgyzstan, it's about 85% Muslim and it's an ex-Soviet nation, but it's recently made efforts to distance itself from Russia. And so national security experts question that decision just because it really is making efforts to distance itself from Russia. And so national security experts questioned that decision just because it really is making efforts to align more with Western interests.

Myanmar, on the other hand, has been engaged, obviously, in a large-scale ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya Muslims. So that could be some rationale to sort of clamp down on Myanmar for doing that. Interesting. So we have on one hand another sort of extension of the so-called Muslim ban, but also including Myanmar where Muslims are persecuted? The rationale doesn't seem entirely consistent. This isn't what the administration is saying. This is just what people are speculating could be the actual rationale behind these bans. But as I said, the administration is just saying that they want them to start complying with their security standards.

We just did an episode covering the crisis the Rohingya are facing in Myanmar. Could this travel ban exclude the Rohingya from coming to the United States as refugees fleeing ethnic cleansing? The administration says that this won't impact refugee admissions in any way. So I think the Rohingya would still be able to come under the restrictions. Did this news come as a surprise that the president was expanding the travel ban? I mean, after the news leaked about him wanting to have more immigrants from Norway and fewer from so-called shithole countries, is this just to be expected that he's going to ban black and brown people from coming to the country? It's definitely thematically consistent in that way.

But we also knew that the administration was considering expanding the travel ban since at least last September. And the Supreme Court's ruling on the travel ban back in 2018 left that possibility wide open. In that sense, it's not entirely surprising news, but it doesn't make it any less troubling that the administration is imposing these restrictions based on what a lot of experts consider to be a thin national security justification. How are these countries responding, especially Nigeria, where we are seeing a lot of immigration to the United States? Nigerians were entirely blindsided by this. They have been a huge partner to the U.S. in counterterrorism efforts as well as an economic partner.

They export a huge amount of oil to the U.S. in counterterrorism efforts as well as an economic partner. They export a huge amount of oil to the U.S. So Nigeria's top diplomat has recently said that this was catching Nigeria off guard. We were somewhat blindsided with the announcement of the visa restrictions by the U.S. But the thing is, is that the restrictions can be lifted at any point. Oh, yeah? We're putting in place the architecture that will now make that, the information and the data on that immediately available to the U.S. and all the member states and member countries of Interpol. This could be a kind of carrot for Nigerian diplomats

and for all of these other countries to comply with what the U.S. wants in terms of its security standards. My full name is Dr. Oye Owolewa. I found out that Nigeria was added onto the list about a week ago. Folks who still want to come here as visitors can still do so. However, I'm not allowed to become permanent citizens. My parents came to the United States and met Northeastern University in Boston. So they met there, decided to get married and have children and raise them in Boston. So in my parents case, if this policy was enacted 40 years ago, I wouldn't be here today. We have a lot of family members are still in Nigeria which include cousins

and my grandmother. So we're very concerned about how we're going to take care of our family back home, health-wise and financially, as well as we're concerned about some of our friends who also had extended family in Nigeria. I was extremely, extremely upset because this was, again, part of Donald Trump's racist and xenophobic agenda. I personally believe that keeping Nigeria on the banned list until Nigeria finds a way to address terrorism is a red herring. I also see a lot of discrepancies between countries that have posed a risk to Americans in the past versus not. So in September 11, 2001, most of the attackers came from Saudi Arabia. However, they were not included in Donald Trump's original Muslim ban. People have theorized that Donald Trump's business entanglements in

different countries affect his policy. As a Nigerian American and a Muslim, I look at his policies as a direct finger at me saying you are not welcome here. Even though I've done my best to provide for my community, I take care of my family, I still feel like I am not good enough for Donald Trump. This growing travel ban might just be President Trump's preferred way of doing diplomacy. I'm Sean Ramos for him. That's After the Break on Today Explained. and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend.

With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month. Thank you. R-A-M-P dot com slash explained. Cards issued by Sutton Bank. Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. Nicole, when we left off, you mentioned that the administration was willing to lift this ban if, say, Nigeria complied with certain rules and met certain standards. Is the ban basically being used as an ultimatum? Yeah, it appears that the administration is trying to impose these restrictions in an effort to get these countries to comply with their security standards and perhaps under the table work on some other issues that are outstanding. Has the United States done this before with like other countries?

Belarus was actually previously on the list of countries that were supposed to be covered by the ban, but they were recently taken off after a lot of experts pointed out that Belarus has been making efforts to distance itself from Russia. It kind of would have been nice to see like Belarus on the list, like a country with, I don't know, you know, more white people. Yeah. And I have to speculate that perhaps they were hoping to put Belarus on the list precisely for that reason, so that advocates wouldn't be saying what they're saying now, which is that this is an African ban. Do we know if the administration is doing any, you know, like, back-channel diplomacy like this with other countries,

where they're threatening putting a country on a list like this in exchange for some diplomatic end? So at least the U.S.'s relationship with Mexico has really taken on a theme like that. At the White House today, President Trump showed reporters a piece of paper that he claims is a secret agreement with Mexico to stop Central American migrants heading to the U.S. They threatened to impose tariffs on all Mexican goods unless Mexico complied with what Trump wanted to do on immigration enforcement. Immigration agents in southern Mexico seemed eager to prove their cracking down on Central American immigrants. Mexico ultimately complied with what the administration wanted them to do, which is impose the National

Guard on their southern border to prevent migrants from coming up to the U.S.-Mexico border and trying to cross. So they appear to be pulling what looks like a family, their children as well, off of this one van. They've been checking people's documents. They pull them out of the car and take them into custody. Trump is trying to sort of arm-twist countries into doing what he wants. With immigration bans and tariffs? Yes.

I mean, when you talk about this, like, not working out with Belarus and Mexico, it feels like this is all but an actual form of diplomacy that the Trump administration is resorting to here. Is that what this is? Trump likes to take the strongman approach, and that's definitely what he's been doing in the case of imposing these bans. He knows that if he can bully a country into doing something, then why wouldn't he? And indeed, like, we've seen a total gutting of the State Department under his tenure. He thinks that a lot of diplomats are kind of soft as compared to the immigration enforcement arms of the Department of Homeland Security. He's been investing in those heavily while there's been a huge brain drain from the State

Department with senior officials leaving under discontent. The problem is, though, that this comes at a major cost. What might result from this sort of shift in diplomatic approach? It really could be the fraying of U.S. relations with a lot of these countries, which have been strong U.S. partners in the past. I am not sure how Nigeria is going to interpret this in the long term or how Nigerian immigrants in the U.S. is going to interpret this in the long term or how Nigerian immigrants in the U.S. are going to interpret this in the long term, but this definitely feels like

a blow to them. They are some of the most successful immigrants that the U.S. has. They're highly educated. They are going into fields like medicine, comparable to other classes of immigrants, and Nigeria is a major oil exporter to the U.S. So there's a lot on the line here for U.S. relations with Nigeria. Also, this ban would affect almost 1.2 billion people on the African continent. Plus, there are a lot of interests at stake in some of these countries where China and Russia are having competing interests with the U.S. So Chinese, Turkish, Russian, and British firms are all trying to sort of stake out their place in the future economy. So this ban really could distance the U.S.

from African nations at a time that's critical economically. On the other hand, is there a chance that this is playing very well to President Trump's base, who seems to approve very much so of the job that he's doing? Yeah, it's an election year, and he knows that his base really responds to restricting immigration and his rhetoric about the wall and banning all Muslim immigrants to the U.S. That was something he said on the campaign trail in 2016, infamously. So this really is just a continuation of that theme, and we can expect him to hit that hard in 2020. Marianne Mendoza, I'm an angel mom. An angel mom, an angel dad, angel families are someone who has lost a loved one at the hands of an illegal alien criminal in the country.

I am voting for President Trump in 2020, not only for his immigration policies, but for many other aspects of what's going on in this country. The president is barring people from becoming legal residents permanently. This is a pause. And I trust the President more than I trust the majority of politicians in DC that he has the best interests of the American people at heart. And this is why he's doing this. A lot of times the Democrats talk about giving free higher education to DACA participants, to people from other countries,

to give them free college. If that was all given to American citizens, think about the higher education our citizens would be getting and filling those jobs that they claim we need foreigners to fill. President Trump understands that Americans deserve to be the number one priority of American politicians. We cannot take care of the whole world. We cannot be the open door to every refugee and every sob story across this world. There's enough homeless people and people who are barely making it on a day-to-day basis in America who are citizens who deserve to have a president to place us first. And this is what has awoken the patriotism in this country,

is we have a president who recognizes that. Thank you.