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Trump to replace travel ban with restrictions on more countries

Chad, N. Korea, Venezuela added to list, but some moves look symbolic

By JOSH GERSTEIN and TED HESSON

President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban will morph into a new set of restrictions on travelers from an expanded set of countries, U.S. officials announced Sunday night as major parts of the order were close to expiring.

The current policy, which denies visas to citizens of six majority Muslim countries, will be replaced by a new set of travel limits on eight countries, including all but one of those on the previous list. The nations facing indefinite travel restrictions under the new policy are Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen, officials said Sunday.

Existing visa-holders are exempt, and waivers will remain available for travelers with U.S. ties, although those exemptions appear to be narrowed in the new directive.

One country on the current list, Sudan, was dropped from the restricted roster — effective immediately. The new countries and the revised waiver policy are set to take effect Oct. 18.

"We are taking action today to protect the safety and security of the American people by establishing a minimum security baseline for entry into the United States,” Trump said in a statement. “We cannot afford to continue the failed policies of the past, which present an unacceptable danger to our country. My highest obligation is to ensure the safety and security of the American people, and in issuing this new travel order, I am fulfilling that sacred obligation.”

"Making America Safe is my number one priority. We will not admit those into our country we cannot safely vet," Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday evening.

Earlier in the day, as he prepared to return from his New Jersey golf club to the White House, Trump was asked what provisions he wanted to see in the latest set of travel restrictions.

“The tougher the better,” Trump said, without elaborating.

While the new proclamation restricts some travel from two non-Muslim countries — North Korea and Venezuela — those limits seem largely symbolic.

Only about 110 North Koreans got visas to travel to the U.S. in the last fiscal year. The new restrictions on Venezuela apply only to government officials, not to the broader population, and could have been imposed without including them in the new travel ban proclamation.

A Trump administration official who briefed reporters Sunday evening said the changes were not aimed at making the policy appear less like the “Muslim Ban” Trump promised during the presidential campaign.

“The restrictions, whether previously or now, were never ever, ever based on race, religion or creed,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Officials said the new restrictions were based on the findings of a recent review of which countries are cooperating or complying with U.S. requests for data on the identities of and terrorism risks posed by potential travelers.

"We are no longer allowing information-sharing deficiencies overseas to threaten our security here at home. We have set a new standard," one administration adviser said.

However, officials acknowledged that a broader set of considerations ultimately impacted what restrictions were placed on individual nations.

For example, while Iraq's document-authentication and information-sharing efforts were deemed insufficient, Trump elected to leave Iraq off the new list due to the pivotal role the country plays in the fight against terrorism and the Islamic State, officials said.

"Iraq maintains a close partnership with the United States," one senior official noted.

Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke sent the president a classified report Sept. 15 detailing her suggestions for how to deal with countries whose assistance was deemed inadequate.

Senior administration officials met with Trump on Friday to discuss the issue, but there was no announcement as the expiration of the six-country ban drew closer. The ban was set to expire Sunday night.

The announcement of the new phase for the travel ban comes at a sensitive time for litigation over the version of the policy Trump issued in March. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Oct. 10 on the legality of the measure, but the justices have already suggested that the dispute may be moot due to the temporary nature of that directive.

Newly confirmed Solicitor General Noel Francisco filed a notice Sunday night with the Supreme Court informing the justices about the new directive and urging that the litigants in the travel ban cases be allowed to file new briefs by Oct. 5 addressing the impact of the new policy on the pair of pending high court cases.

Critics of Trump's earlier travel bans said they still consider the more nuanced policy issued Sunday to be based on bias.

Rep. Adam Schiff said the administration was just trying to disguise its real intentions.

"The Administration may hope that the addition of North Korea and Venezuela to the list of nations with restricted travel will mollify the courts, but no amount of repackaging can disguise the fact that the intent behind the ban was and remains a noxious attempt to ban people based on their faith," the California Democrat said.

"Six of President Trump's targeted countries are Muslim. The fact that Trump has added North Korea — with few visitors to the U.S. — and a few government officials from Venezuela doesn't obfuscate the real fact that the administration's order is still a Muslim ban," said American Civil Liberties Union executive director Anthony Romero. "President Trump's original sin of targeting Muslims cannot be cured by throwing other countries onto his enemies list."

Trump issued his first travel ban order one week after he took office in January, banning travel to the United States by nationals of seven majority Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Announced with immediate effect, it triggered widespread protests at U.S. airports and significant confusion about its application, particularly to green card holders.

Many critics said the measure was a thinly veiled version of the Muslim ban Trump championed during the presidential campaign. After courts blocked key parts of the first directive, Trump issued a new order in March dropping Iraq from the list of targeted countries and removing other language that courts suggested indicated religious animus. He also excluded existing visa and green cardholders from the impact of the suspension.

The revised order still encountered quick resistance from the courts, which issued injunctions against aspects of the ban.

The Supreme Court cut those injunctions back somewhat in June when it agreed to take up the question of whether Trump's order was legal. Under the high court's interim order, close family members of U.S. citizens or residents are exempt from the visa ban and another portion of Trump's directive halting refugee admissions. The justices also exempted people with bona fide ties to U.S. companies, schools or organizations.

The new proclamation includes waivers available to foreigners with close family members in the United States and for some people seeking to come to the U.S. for work or to do business with U.S. firms, but if the courts allow the new directive to take effect the waiver may apply to a smaller set of relatives. A mere tie to a U.S. company or organization, such as a past relationship or a speaking invitation, might not be enough to qualify.

As the courts and Trump himself have watered down his original travel ban, Trump has complained publicly that what was left of the policy is too weak.

"The travel ban into the United States should be far larger, tougher and more specific-but stupidly, that would not be politically correct!" he wrote on Twitter earlier this month after a terrorist attack in London.

The tweet continued Trump’s pattern of complicating the work of his administration’s lawyers by undercutting their arguments.

While the Justice Department has argued that none of the restrictions target any particular religion, Trump’s public call for a “more specific” and less “politically correct” ban suggested his desire may, in fact, be to limit travel by Muslims.

In addition, while government lawyers repeatedly called his March order a “temporary pause” — language that came directly from the executive order he signed — the president has dismissed that kind of construction as sophistry.

“The lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!” he tweeted in June.

Another portion of Trump's March travel ban that sought to halt admission of refugees from across the globe is set to expire Oct. 24. It is currently in effect, but refugees with U.S. ties have been granted exemptions.

The global refugee halt is not addressed in Trump's new proclamation, but officials said he is preparing within days to set a cap on refugee admissions for the next fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1