Trump travel ban is as pointless as his 'Muslim ban'
. Although the first travel ban in 2017, aimed at Muslim-majority countries, sparked massive protests around the country, this broader ban has met with a far more muted response. That may indicate that Americans are becoming inured to Trump's xenophobic policies. Or they may be overwhelmed by the sheer ferocity on display as Trump takes the unprecedented step of sending the Marines in to quell protests unfolding in Los Angeles.It's not clear what the administration hopes to achieve by banning visits from the poorest countries in the world. The executive order purports to 'protect the United States from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats,' noting that travelers in a number of the countries overstay their visas and have governments incapable of adequate vetting.But is blocking what are mostly business and tourist visas really the best solution to address such concerns? Only three countries on the list — Cuba, Iran and Syria — are considered by the US to be state sponsors of terrorism. And most terrorists in the US are home-grown. The biggest terrorist threat in the country, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is domestic. That's true even if you look only at Islamic extremist attacks.. Trump specifically cited the recent Boulder, Colorado bombing by an Egyptian national here on an expired visa as an example of why the travel ban was needed. But Egypt isn't on the list. The administration also ignores the fact that the US conducts its own extensive vetting before admitting travelers on foreign visas. That includes thorough security screenings and the collection of biometric data that can be run through national databases maintained by the Department of Homeland Security and the National Vetting Center, among others.As to the people who overstay their visas, that is a legitimate and serious problem that also has troubled previous administrations. The Center for Migration Studies estimates that 40% of unauthorized immigrants arrived not by illegally crossing borders, but on visas that have since expired. Blocking new travel from these countries, however, is an ineffective response.The original 'Muslim ban' was halted by lower court injunctions that rightfully ruled a ban targeting a particular religion was unacceptable. Trump fought back with two more versions, until a version focusing on nations was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. He continued to broaden that list until the last year of his presidency. When President Joe Biden took office, he revoked the policy..Explained | Trump's new travel ban: Who is exempt. The new ban has been neatly constructed to avoid lawsuits — a triumph for an administration that has faced blue state challenges on nearly every major action.It makes exceptions for existing visa holders and some special cases. But the special cases don't seem to have been thought through. For example, that category includes Afghan translators who worked with US troops, but not their families. It also includes the athletes, coaches and support staff for two global events scheduled to take place in Los Angeles: the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics. But it makes no such exception for the thousands of fans who might be expected to pour in from those nations.The ban will be disruptive and cruel for many immigrant families nationwide. For example, Minnesota has the largest Somali refugee population in the US, along with significant refugee resettlements from Sudan and Myanmar. Habon Abdulle, the head of a Ayada Leads, a Minneapolis nonprofit serving women of the African diaspora, told the Sahan Journal, a local immigrant news outlet, that the impact would be immediate and dramatic. 'The previous travel bans left behind heartbreak — weddings missed, funerals unattended, futures put on hold,' Abdulle said. 'These are not political abstractions. These are human stories, interrupted.'Nations often must make tough decisions knowing the outcome will inflict pain. If the need is demonstrable and the strategy sound, that is the price of leadership. But this travel ban does not meet those tests.
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Justice Department attorneys later asked a federal judge to end a sealing order for the records nearly two years ahead of its expiration date. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King led, is opposed to unsealing any of the records for privacy reasons. The organization's lawyers said King's relatives also wanted to keep the files under seal. Scholars, history buffs and journalists have been preparing to study the documents to find new information about the civil rights leader's assassination on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. The King family's statement released after Trump's order in January said they hoped to get an opportunity to review the files as a family prior to its public release. King's family, including his two living children, Martin III and Bernice, was given advance notice of the release and had their own teams reviewing the records ahead of the public disclosure. In a statement released Monday, King's children called their father's case a captivating public curiosity for decades. But they also emphasized the personal nature of the matter and urged that these files must be viewed within their full historical context. We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint, and respect for our family's continuing grief, the statement said. Here is what we know about the assassination and what scholars had to say ahead of the release of the documents. In Memphis, shots ring out King was standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, heading to dinner with a few friends, when he was shot and killed. King had been in Memphis to support a sanitation workers strike protesting poor working conditions and low pay. The night before the assassination, King delivered the famous Mountaintop speech on a stormy night at the Mason Temple in Memphis. 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King's widow, Coretta Scott King, asked for the probe to be reopened, and in 1998, then-Attorney General Janet Reno directed the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department to do so. The Justice Department said it found nothing to disturb the 1969 judicial determination that James Earl Ray murdered Dr. King. Dexter King, one of King's children, met with Ray in prison in 1997, saying afterwards that he believed Ray's claims of innocence. Dexter King died in 2024. With the support of King's family, a civil trial in state court was held in Memphis in 1999 against Loyd Jowers, a man alleged to have known about a conspiracy to assassinate King. Dozens of witnesses testified, and a Memphis jury found Jowers and unnamed others, including government agencies, participated in a conspiracy to assassinate King. What will the public see in the newly released documents? It's not clear what the records will actually show. King scholars, for example, would like to see what information the FBI was discussing and circulating as part of their investigation, said Ryan Jones, director of history, interpretation and curatorial services at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. That's critical given the fact the American public, at that time, was unaware that the FBI that is involved in the investigation, was leading a smear campaign to discredit the same man while he was alive, Jones said. They were the same bureau who was receiving notices of assassination attempts against King and ignored them. Academics who have studied King also would like to see information about the FBI's surveillance of King, including the extent they went to get details about his personal life, track him, and try to discredit him as anti-American, said Lerone A. Martin, director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. 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Another factor could be the two attempts on Trump's life as he was campaigning for a second presidential term, and a desire to expose the broader history of US assassinations, said Brian Kwoba, an associate history professor at the University of Memphis. That said, it is still a little bit confusing because it's not clear why any US president, including Trump, would want to open up files that could be damaging to the United States and its image both in the US and abroad, he said.
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