Evelyn Reynolds

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    What is Trump’s new travel ban, and which countries are affected?

    Nearly five months into his second term, Donald Trump has announced a new sweeping travel ban that could reshape the US’s borders more dramatically than any policy in modern memory. The restrictions, revealed through a presidential proclamation on Wednesday, would target citizens from more than a dozen countries – creating a three-tiered system of escalating barriers to entry.The proclamation represents one of the most ambitious attempts to reshape the US’s approach to global mobility in modern history and potentially affects millions of people coming to the United States for relocation, travel, work or school.What is a travel ban?A travel ban restricts or prohibits citizens of specific countries from entering the United States. These restrictions can range from complete visa suspensions to specific limitations on certain visa categories.Trump’s day one executive order required the state department to identify countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries”.His travel ban proclamation referenced the previous executive order, as well as the recent attack by an Egyptian national in Boulder, Colorado, upon a group of people demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza.What is a presidential proclamation?A presidential proclamation is a decree that is often ceremonial or can have legal implications when it comes to national emergencies.Unlike an executive order, which is a directive to heads of agencies in the administration, the proclamation primarily signals a broad change in policy.Which countries are listed in the travel ban?The following countries were identified for total bans of any nationals seeking to travel to the US for immigrant or non-immigrant reasons:

    Afghanistan

    Myanmar

    Chad

    Republic of the Congo

    Equatorial Guinea

    Eritrea

    Haiti

    Iran

    Libya

    Somalia

    Sudan

    Yemen
    He’s also partially restricting the travel of people from:

    Burundi

    Cuba

    Laos

    Sierra Leone

    Togo

    Turkmenistan

    Venezuela
    Why were these countries chosen?The proclamation broadly cites national security issues for including the countries, but specifies a few different issues that reach the level of concern for the travel ban.For some countries, such as Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Venezuela, the proclamation claims that there is no reliable central authority for issuing passports or screening and vetting nationals traveling out of the country.For other countries, such as Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Burundi, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo and Turkmenistan, the proclamation cites a high rate of immigrants overstaying their visas in the US.Finally, there are several countries that are included because of terrorist activity or state- sponsored terrorism, including Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and Cuba.How does this travel ban differ from the one in 2017?The 2017 ban initially targeted seven predominantly Muslim countries before expanding to include North Korea and Venezuela. This new proclamation is broader and also makes the notable addition of Haiti.During his 2024 campaign for the presidency, Trump amplified false claims made by his running mate, JD Vance, that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were “eating the pets of the people that live there”. The proclamation falsely claims that “hundreds of thousands of illegal Haitian aliens flooded into the United States during the Biden administration” and this “influx harms American communities”. In fact, about 200,000 Haitians were granted temporary protected status, which gives legal residency permits to foreign nationals who are unable to return home safely due to conditions in their home countries.Also notable are the restrictions on Afghans, given that many of the Afghans approved to live in the US as refugees were forced to flee their home country as a result of working to support US troops there, before the full withdrawal of US forces in 2021. The agreement with the Taliban to withdraw US troops was negotiated by Trump during his first term.Last month, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem announced “the termination of temporary protected status for Afghanistan”, effective 20 May. More

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    Trump signs order banning citizens of 12 countries from entering the US

    Donald Trump has signed a sweeping order banning travel from 12 countries and restricting travel from seven others, reviving and expanding the travel bans from his first term.The nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen will be “fully” restricted from entering the US, according to the proclamation. Meanwhile, the entry of nationals of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be partially restricted.The US president said that he “considered foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism goals” in deciding the scope of the ban. Trump had cued up the ban in an executive order signed on 20 January, his first day back in the White House, instructing his administration to submit a list of candidates for a ban by 21 March.Trump has cited a range of justifications for the bans, including national security and concerns that visitors from those countries are overstaying their visas.But advocates and experts have said that blanket travel bans discriminate against groups of people based on ethnicity alone. They will likely result – as the travels bans did during Trump’s first term – in the separation of families. The bans on travel from Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela could be especially impactful in US communities with huge immigrant populations from those countries.“This discriminatory policy, which limits legal immigration, not only flies in the face of what our country is supposed to stand for, it will be harmful to our economy and communities that rely on the contributions of people who come to America from this wide range of countries,” said Pramila Jayapal, a Democratic representative of Washington.The decision to ban travel from these countries comes amid a wave of hardline immigration policies that Trump has issued, including the blocking of asylum claims at the southern border and cancelling temporary protected status for immigrants from a number of countries facing deep humanitarian crises. Trump has also signed a proclamation to restrict foreign student visas at Harvard University and ordered US consulates to conduct social media screening of every visa applicant seeking to travel to the university.In a video message released on social media, Trump said he was making good on a promise to act following the recent attack at a Boulder, Colorado, event showing support for Israeli hostages. The attack by an Egyptian national “underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas. We don’t want them,” he said.Trump added that the list was “subject to revisions based on whether material improvements are made” and that “likewise, new countries could be added as threats emerge around the world”.Having instituted a travel ban on Muslim countries early in his first term, Trump trailed his plans for a new ban during his election campaign against Kamala Harris last year.“I will ban refugee resettlement from terror-infested areas like the Gaza Strip, and we will seal our border and bring back the travel ban,” Trump said in September. “Remember the famous travel ban? We didn’t take people from certain areas of the world. We’re not taking them from infested countries.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenHe was referring to the ban he imposed after taking office in January 2017, leading to chaos at airports as protesters and civil rights attorneys rushed to help affected travelers.Trump said the ban was needed to combat terrorist threats. It was blocked by federal courts on civil liberties grounds but the US supreme court, to which Trump would eventually appoint three hardline rightwing justices, allowed the ban to stand.The supreme court said Trump’s ban did not target Muslims – despite the fact it originally targeted travelers from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, Muslim-majority countries. According to the court, the ban fell within the remit of a president’s national security powers. North Korea and Venezuela were also included.The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) said then: “The Muslim ban’s bigotry should have been as clear to the supreme court as it is to the Muslims demonized by it. Apparently, everyone but the supreme court can see the decision for what it is: an expression of animosity.”In 2020, shortly before the Covid pandemic drastically reduced world travel, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Myanmar, Tanzania and Sudan were added to the ban.In 2021, that travel ban was among measures Joe Biden ended within hours of being sworn in as Trump’s White House successor. More

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    Trump officials intensify Columbia dispute with accreditation threat

    The Department of Education announced on Wednesday afternoon that it has notified Columbia University’s accreditor of an alleged violation of federal anti-discrimination laws by the elite private university in New York that is part of the Ivy League.The alleged violation means that Columbia, in the Trump administration’s assessment, has “failed to meet the standards” set by the relevant regional, government-recognized but independent body responsible for the accreditation of degree-granting institutions, as a kind of educational quality controller.In this case the accreditor is the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Accreditors determine which institutions are eligible for federal student loans and various federal grants.The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment.“Accreditors have an enormous public responsibility as gatekeepers of federal student aid. They determine which institutions are eligible for federal student loans and Pell grants,” the secretary of education, Linda McMahon, said in a statement. Pell grants are awarded as federal financial aid to students with exceptional financial need.A spokesperson for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education declined to provide comment but confirmed that the organization had received a letter from the Department of Education about the matter on Wednesday.While the federal government does not directly accredit US universities, it has a role in overseeing the mostly private organizations that do. Trump has often complained that accreditors approve institutions that fail to provide, in his view, quality education.The notice marks the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s bid to dictate to Columbia after accusing the college of failing to protect students from antisemitic harassment.It follows the cancellation of $400m in federal grants and contracts, after which the university yielded to a series of changes demanded by the administration, including setting up a new disciplinary committee, initiating investigations into students critical of Israel’s war in Gaza, and ceding control of its Middle East studies department.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionColumbia was at the forefront of student encampment protests last spring, with more direct action protests erupting in recent weeks and jeers at leadership at commencement ceremonies last month, and has cycled through a series of university presidents in the past 18 months.The Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services said last month that an investigation found that the university had acted with “deliberate indifference” toward the harassment of Jewish students during campus protests, while Columbia has previously said it would work with the government to address antisemitism, harassment and discrimination.Reuters contributed reporting More

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    ‘These guys are idiots’: Sean Penn and Dustin Lance Black call out government’s Harvey Milk erasure

    Sean Penn, the Oscar-winning actor of the 2008 Harvey Milk biopic Milk and Milk writer Dustin Lance Black have spoken out against US defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to remove the gay rights icon’s name from a navy ship.“This is yet another move to distract and to fuel the culture wars that create division,” Black told the Hollywood Reporter in a phone call on Wednesday. “It’s meant to get us to react in ways that are self-centered so that we are further distanced from our brothers and sisters in equally important civil rights fights in this country. It’s divide and conquer.”Penn, who won his second best actor Oscar for playing the former San Francisco supervisor, added in an email: “I’ve never before seen a Secretary of Defense so aggressively demote himself to the rank of Chief PETTY Officer.”The order to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, christened in San Diego in 2021 for the prominent gay rights and navy veteran, was part of an internal memo that was leaked on Tuesday. The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson confirmed that the ship’s new name “will be announced after internal reviews are complete”.The timing of the decision for mid-June, a month meant to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, was reportedly intentional. The renaming is supposed to ensure “alignment with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of reestablishing the warrior culture”, referring to Donald Trump, Hegseth and navy secretary John Phelan, according to the memorandum.“Secretary Hegseth is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all DOD installations and assets are reflective of the commander in chief’s priorities, our nation’s history and the warrior ethos,” the Pentagon said in a statement.“These guys are idiots,” Black told the Hollywood Reporter. “Pete Hegseth does not seem like a smart man, a wise man, a knowledgeable man. He seems small and petty. I would love to introduce him to some LGBTQ folks who are warriors who have had to be warriors our entire life just to live our lives openly as who we are.”Milk, written by Black and directed by Gus Van Sant, depicted Milk’s political ascendancy in San Francisco, where he became the first publicly gay man to be elected to public office when he won a seat on the city’s board of supervisors. He was assassinated along with mayor George Moscone by former city supervisor Dan White in 1978. White was convicted on two counts of voluntary manslaughter and served just five years in prison.The USNS Harvey Milk was initially named in 2016 during the administration of Barack Obama. According to the leaked memo, Phelan is also considering new titles for vessels named after such civil rights icons as Thurgood Marshall, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Harriet Tubman and Cesar Chavez.“Harvey Milk is an icon, a civil rights icon, and for good reason,” Black said. “That’s not going to change. Renaming a ship isn’t going to change that. If people are pissed off, good, be pissed off – but take the appropriate action. Do what Harvey Milk had said we need to do, and it’s about bringing back together the coalition of the ‘us’-es that helps move the pendulum of progress forward. Stop the infighting and lock arms again. That’s what Harvey would say.” More

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    LGBTQ+ leaders condemn Trump plan to drop Harvey Milk’s name from navy ship

    Leaders in San Francisco are blasting the Trump administration for stripping the name of the gay rights activist Harvey Milk from a US naval ship, and especially during Pride month, when people gather to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.Milk is a revered figure in San Francisco history, a former city supervisor and gay rights advocate who was fatally shot along with Mayor George Moscone in 1978 by disgruntled former supervisor Dan White. Just last month, California marked what would have been Milk’s 95th birthday with proclamations heralding his authenticity, kindness and calls for unity.He served for four years in the navy during the Korean war, before he was forced out for being gay. Milk later moved to San Francisco, where he became one of the first openly gay politicians in the world with his election to the board of supervisors in 1977.Cleve Jones, a close friend and LGBTQ+ activist, dismissed the renaming as an attempt by the Trump administration to distract the American public from far more serious concerns, including the ongoing war in Gaza and looming cuts to Medicaid and social security.“Yes, this is cruel and petty and stupid, and yes, it’s an insult to my community,” Jones said. “I would be willing to wager a considerable sum that American families sitting around that proverbial kitchen table this evening are not going to be talking about how much safer they feel now that Harvey’s name is going to be taken off that ship.”The Pentagon has not confirmed news of the renaming, a highly rare move, but unnamed officials say the change was laid out in an internal memo. It is in keeping with attempts by the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the broader Trump administration to purge all programs, policies, books and social media mentions of references to diversity, equity and inclusion. A new name has not yet been selected for the USNS Harvey Milk.Milk’s nephew, Stuart Milk, said in a phone call on Wednesday that he and the Harvey Milk Foundation have reached out to the Pentagon, which confirmed a proposed name change was on the table.“And our hope is that the recommendation is put aside, but if it’s not, it will be a rallying cry not just for our community but for all minority communities,” said Stuart Milk, who is executive chair of the foundation, adding that his uncle always said that gay rights, and those of other marginalized communities, required constant vigilance.“So I don’t think he’d be surprised,” Milk said, “but he’d be calling on us to remain vigilant, to stay active.”Elected officials, including the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, called the move a shameful attempt to erase the contributions of LGBTQ+ people and an insult to fundamental American values of honoring veterans and those who worked to build a better country. Pelosi and Newsom are both San Francisco Democrats.Newsom took aim at Hegseth, calling the attempt: “A cowardly act from a man desperate to distract us from his inability to lead the Pentagon” on the social media platform X.The USNS Harvey Milk was named in 2016 by then-navy secretary Ray Mabus, who said at the time that the John Lewis-class of oilers would be named after leaders who fought for civil and human rights.Sean Penn portrayed Milk in an Oscar-winning 2008 movie depicting his audacious rise in politics and his death by a supervisor who cast the sole “no” vote on his legislation banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.Milk’s career, and his killing, was also the subject of a documentary that won an Academy Award in 1985.While the renaming attempt is rare, the Biden administration changed the names of two navy ships in 2023 as part of the effort to remove Confederate names from US military installations. More

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    MyPillow’s Mike Lindell faces trial and plans to testify about 2020 election lies

    A trial underway in Colorado could add to the financial problems facing the pillow salesman and prominent election denier Mike Lindell and will serve as another test of whether defamation law can be effective to fight false claims about elections.Opening statements began Tuesday in a case brought by Eric Coomer, who formerly worked in security and voting technology strategy for the voting machine company Dominion. Coomer sued Lindell and a host of others who spread unproven claims that he interfered with the 2020 election.Companies and individuals who were targeted by the right with false stolen election claims after the 2020 election have attempted to use defamation law to hold parties including Fox News and other rightwing media outlets accountable for false claims. Several lawsuits have been settled, including a claim Coomer brought against conservative outlet Newsmax, while juries have awarded damages in others, including a major judgment against Rudy Giuliani.The conspiracy theories about Coomer started with a rightwing podcaster in Colorado, Joe Oltmann, who claimed that someone who identified himself as “Eric the Dominion guy” had been on an “antifa” call where he said: “Don’t worry about the election, Trump is not gonna win. I made fucking sure of that.”Oltmann found some of Coomer’s social media posts, which were anti-Donald Trump. Oltmann has not produced any tape of the alleged call, nor any other proof that Coomer manipulated the election. Coomer is also suing Oltmann, who is expected to testify this week in the Lindell trial.Lindell elevated Oltmann’s claims and has fought the lawsuit, one of several he has faced over his election lies. His online TV network, LindellTV, is providing regular coverage of the case.On Monday, the day the jury was selected, Lindell held a news conference outside the courthouse before the trial began.He said he plans to take the stand at trial this week, telling Rolling Stone: “Of course I’m gonna testify at my own trial! … I have nothing to hide. I am a former crack addict; I’ve always been open about that. I’ve always been open about everything! I’m as transparent as they come … So I have nothing to hide at this trial.”Coomer filed the lawsuit against Lindell in April 2022. Coomer’s attorneys have argued Lindell’s statements about Coomer were in part motivated by Newsmax not allowing Lindell to go on its programs after the company settled the lawsuit Coomer brought against it for spreading false claims, according to the Denver Post. Lindell’s attorneys said Coomer’s lawsuit against Lindell “triggered” the pillow salesman into defaming Coomer, the paper reported.In videos shown to the jury on Tuesday, Lindell said Coomer had participated in “the biggest crime this world has ever seen”, reported 9 News, a local Denver news outlet. Lindell’s attorneys said they would not show evidence of a rigged election because it was immaterial to Lindell’s defense.“It’s just words. All Mike Lindell did was talk,” Chris Kachouroff, Lindell’s attorney, said. “Mike believed that he was telling the truth.”According to 9News, Coomer testified in the case on Tuesday, saying he has never interfered with an election and that Lindell’s claims had caused intense disruption to his life. Coomer said he feared for his life, experienced death threats and had gone into hiding for a time.“Ultimately it’s to try to regain some semblance of my life. I didn’t just lose my livelihood, I lost my life as a direct result of statements by Mr. Lindell accusing me of being a traitor,” Coomer said.Lindell is also being sued by Dominion and Smartmatic, another voting machine company. Those lawsuits have not made it to trial. Lindell has struggled to pay for his legal defense – a law firm that was representing him sought to be removed from his cases because he owed them millions of dollars and couldn’t pay, the Star Tribune reported. More

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    We in the cultural sector must stand up to Trump’s attacks – if not now, when? | Gus Casely-Hayford

    In one of his recent Truth Social posts, Donald Trump appeared to fire Kim Sajet – the fearless and utterly brilliant director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. The president used his social media platform to claim that Sajet’s support for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) made her unsuitable for her role. “Upon the request and recommendation of many people, I am hereby terminating the employment of Kim Sajet as Director of the National Portrait Gallery”, Trump wrote. “She is a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position. Her replacement will be named shortly.”Where to start? By now, we all know the arts has become the terrain for a brutal proxy battle for hearts and minds. A culture war 2.0, where not just reputations are at stake, but institutions, whole sectors and ways of thinking. But I am hoping that even Trump’s support base have begun to grow a little bored with these attacks on figures and institutions in the cultural sector. The culture war has moved beyond farce into the deeply tragic.I am sure even many of the president’s most loyal supporters know deep down that the Smithsonian (a vast complex of 21 museums) is a genuine force for good, an institution that represents so much of the US at its very best. And like the Kennedy Center, the cultural institution that Trump took control of earlier this year, or the universities his administration has attacked, the Smithsonian is a fish in a barrel: easy to bully, its financial destiny in significant part tied to public funding, with limited scope to defend itself. This contrived political theatre damages critical institutions, threatens the careers of talented, dedicated people, and its repercussions will be deep and long-lasting.Good museums are not sleepy institutions trapped in heritage-aspic. Across its 178-year history, the Smithsonian has consistently evolved to reflect ambient change and address public need. Like many other national museums around the world, these changes, particularly in recent years, have been driven by an aspiration to engage and enfranchise, to broaden audiences and to catalyse national conversations. I would have thought that seeking to give value back to a greater number of the population is uncontroversial. Institutions this important, mostly sponsored by the public, must simply, continually, work to be ever more universal, inclusive and open. Left or right, that has value. In times like these, when we are, as citizens of western democracies, so riven and divided, the arts have a job to do of being a space for inclusive debate.But the truth is that DEI isn’t some new-fangled indulgence. That drive to be inclusive is what good museums were created to deliver. Twenty-five years ago, I began my career at the British Museum. I still remember reading its founding purpose for the first time. The British Museum was created for “all studious and curious persons”. I remember thinking that the word that does the really hard work in that statement is “all”. The British Museum was created in the mid-18th century around an inclusive imperative, around the idea that we might all hope to find ourselves reflected in its spaces and concerns.Its founders must have recognised the powerful need for a national museum: it was created at a time when Britain was going through a period of existential anxiety, when Scots were rebelling; the country needed a unifying narrative. I am sure the British Museum’s founders knew exactly what they were doing when they committed the institution to that beautifully enfranchising ambition of being for us all. And yes, I know museums have so often failed miserably to live up to these inclusive objectives, but we must never stop trying, nor relinquish the basis on which the public can hold us to account.Universities and museums are vital for healthy societies, and their independence, their bravery, their sometimes maddening honesty, underpins so much that is important. We undermine that at our peril. I spent a number of treasured years as a Smithsonian museum director and fell for its ethos and its dedicated people. It was founded on an ambition to propagate “the increase and diffusion of knowledge”. It was created to enable transformational change through sharing and empowering US citizens with knowledge, with truth. I cannot think of a time when this has been more important.It is unclear whether Trump has the authority to fire Sajet. What is clear is that his move is designed to demoralise her and all my former Smithsonian colleagues. That’s why, directing a different museum now, across the Atlantic, I feel moved to write. We in the cultural sector everywhere need to stand up and be counted, we need to celebrate Kim Sajet, we need to not retreat from diversity here in Britain. To my former colleagues, I say that speaking the truth and having the courage to do so when it is difficult does not make you unsuitable for your roles in a demographically complex democracy; it is probably the most important aspect of what we are called upon to do. It is easy writing the diversity action plan, but having the moral courage to stand up for those principles when they are needed – that is heroic.

    Gus Casely-Hayford is a curator, cultural historian, broadcaster and lecturer who is currently the director of V&A East More