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New travel ban could affect green card holders

Trump's policy threatens to further crimp US entry

By: Hanna Adely
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... President Donald Trump is preparing to impose a new travel ban that would prohibit or restrict people form doze of countries form entering the United States, marking a significant expansion from earlier versions that stranded travelers, separated families and set off mass protests at airports.
..... The pending ban stems form an executive order signed by Trump on his first day in office directing State Department and Homeland Security officials to identify countries with "deficient" vetting and screening to report back in 60 days, meaning March 21. [2025]
..... The measure will protect the nation from "aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes, the order states.
..... Trump's order also states that anyone who has entered the United States since January 21, 2021, especially from countries with identified security risks, could be deported if they don't meet new vetting standards, including whether they bear :hostile attitudes toward the commuter.
..... It is not yet known whether the new travel ban policy will target individuals with existing visas and green cards. But immigration and anti-discrimaiton advocates sport that individuals who arrived in the U.S. from targeted countries will face extra scrutiny, noting that the administration has already begun revoking visas of legal residents who have supported Palestinian causes.
...... Jamal Abdi, president of the national Iranian American Council, said at a panel last week [03/19/2025] that he believed the ban was motivated by discrimination rather than safety, recalling Trump's past comments calling for a "total complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.
..... "This travel ban the administration is planning to bring back will undermine our national security, undermine our economy, undermine the fundamental values of our nation, line free speech," Abdi said. "It will force American families and communities like ours to live in fear and to live with an assumption that the government is always watching, and if we don't stay within the lines - the very partisan lines defined by the current administration - we and our friends and our loved ones could be kicked out of this country."
..... The White House says its measures are needed to protect the nation "from foreign terrorists" and ensure "that those aliens approved for admission into the United States do not intend to harm Americans or our national interests."

Who will be banned?

..... The new travel ban could target as many as 41 countries, Reuters reported.
..... The first "red" group of 10 countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Cuba and North Korea, would face a full visa suspension.
..... Five countries in the "orange" list - Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myannmar and South Sudan - would face partial suspensions of immigrate visas. A third "yellow: group of 26 counties, mostly African nations, would face partial suspension if their governments "do not make efforts to address deficiencies within 60 days," said a memo obtains by Reuters.
..... The New York Times obtained a slightly different draft list, showing that Bhutan would also face a fall ban and listing Belarus, Pakistan, Russia, Siera, Leone and Turkmenistan in the second "Orange" group instead of "Yellow."
..... The pending ban hearkens back to Trump's first term, when he barred people form seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States in one of his first acts as president. Federal courts blocked Trump;s firs and second bans, finding they were motivated by anti-Muslim animus and citing a lack of evidence that they helped national security. in 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of a third travel ban as within the president's powers.
..... The administration's policy - dubbed the "Muslin ban" by critics - sparked fierce protests and a flurry of lawsuits. People who ad gone through years of vetting, interviews and medical checks suddenly had visas canceled; married couples were forced to live apart; and relatives were unable to visit family a for weddings, funerals and broths, NorthJersey.com reported at the time.
..... In immigrant communities, anxiety is growing over the pending ban.
..... Speaking at the Islamic Center of Omar Mohammedi fielded questions from the crowd about who would be included and whether people could be targeted for their political views.
..... "Someone who has a F1 (Student) visa should be careful -a green card not as much," he said, regarding political expression. "In the end, you cannot guarantee anything. Everything now is so erratic." ..... Mohammedi did not think that ours would allow green card holders to be deported for political desent, "but isn't a headache, a stress and a lot of anxiety," he said, adding that "they want to sue this as a chilling impact.
..... "when the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, held an Online forum on February 27, [2025] viewers flooded the chat with similar questions: will my country be targeted, should I share political content Online, should i travel abroad?
..... CAIR advised people to avoid travel outside the United states if the country of origin is likely to be included in the border, answer : as little as you can" because agents are on a "fishing expedition" for information that will be added to intelligence reports. They should also use caution on what they share Online, attorney said.
..... Universities have also warned students and faculty to avoid or postpone international travel if they are not citizens because of potential changes in travel restrictions and visa processing.

'Chilling effect' on free speech

..... The Trump order that laid the groundwork for the ban states that anyone found to "bear hostile attitudes toward citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and advocates for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security" could be deported.
..... Advocates raised concerns about the government's imposing "ideological tests" that they described as "vague" and an attack on free speech.
..... "this is far more dangerous than the Muslim ban that we saw in 2017,: Abed Avoub, national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimnation Committee.
..... "It's far more dangerous than denying somebody a visa, because now the will be going after individuals that are here. the chilling effect on freedom of speech and freedom of expression is going to be felt.
..... They pointed to the base of Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student who was detained by immigration authorities on March 8 [2025] and told his green card was being revoked. Khalil, a Palestinian born in Syria, had a key role in student protest as a lead negotiator and miscommunications liaison. Khalil was not charged with a crime, but the Trump administration said he should be deported because of his protest activity, which it equated with antisemitism and support for terrorism.
..... In a court filing, the U.S. cited a rarely used provision in the Immigration and Nationality act that says the security of state can move to deport a person whose presence has "adverse" foreign policy consequences. The provision raised in Khalil's case was initially used "to target Eastern European Jewish Holocaust survivors suspected of being Soviet agents," the Jewish publications the Forward reported.
..... Last week, [03/19/2025] the United States deported Dr. Rahsa Alwich, a kidney doctor and associate professor at Browns University, saying she had photos on her phone "sympathetic" to Hassan Nasrallah, a religious cleric and former leader of the militant group Hezbollah and attended a funeral for him. The department did not say how it knew she attended the funeral, which was held in a sports stadium and attracted thens of thousands of people.
..... On Monday, [03/17/2025] agents detained a Georgetown University postdoctoral fellow and teacher from India, telling him the government had revoked his visa, Politico reported. The government said he spread "Hamas propaganda" and that he has a connection to a Hamas adviser, an allegation that news reports said appeared to be tied to a relative of his wife, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian heritage. Lebanon and India are not on the draft list of banned countries.
..... Administrator officials are holding firm that visa and green card holders who participate in protest or share information viewed as "pro-Hamas" or "antisemitic" don't have the right to remain in the country.
..... "This is not about free speech," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a press briefing last week. [03/20/2025] "this is about people that don't have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card."

'Vague and overboard'

..... The Ameircan-Arab Anti-Discriminaiton committee, a legal advocacy group, filed a lawsuit Saturday [03/22/2025] in U.S. District Court of the Northern District of New York challenging as unconstitutional the Trump administration's actions to deport international students and scholars who protest or express support for Palestinian rights.
..... The lawsuit seeks a restraining order to block enforcement of two executive orders - the one that laid the groundwork for the new travel ban and a related order that calls for deporting students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.
..... The order are "unconstitutionally vague and overboard," argued the American-Arab Anti-Discrinaiton Committee, which field the lawsuit with co-coucel Eric Lee on behalf of two graduate students and a professor at Cornell University. The orders also "chilled protected expression, prohibiting them from speaking, hearing, or engaging with viewpoints critical of the U.S. government or the government of Israel, under threat of criminal prosecution or deportation."
..... Advocates warned that any new precedent could be sued to target other groups. They noted that McCarthysism, the 1950s movement of political persecution, initially targeted alleged communists and then spread to other left-wing activists, journalists, academics and labor leaders.
..... On the campaign trial, Trump stated that he want to sue the Immigration Nationality act "to keep foreign, christian-hating communists, Marxists and sociabilities out of America."
..... "American need to know,: said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the Amercian-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "that if it's happening to those that are pro-Palestine and the Palestine movement now, it could be any other movement in the future. so we need to really be careful and pay attention to how extreme this administration is going in implementing their agenda."

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