US news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump travel ban comes as little surprise amid barrage of draconian restrictions

      by

      Donald Trump’s first travel ban in 2017 had an immediate, explosive impact – spawning chaos at airports nationwide.This time around, the panic and chaos was already widespread by the time the president signed his proclamation Wednesday to fully or partially restrict foreign nationals from 19 countries from entering the United States.Since being sworn in for his second term, Trump has unleashed a barrage of draconian immigration restrictions. Within hours of taking office, the president suspended the asylum system at the southern border as part of his wide-ranging immigration crackdown. His administration has ended temporary legal residency for 211,000 Haitians, 117,000 Venezuelans and 110,000 Cubans, and moved to revoke temporary protected status for several groups of immigrants. It has moved to restrict student visas and root out scholars who have come to the US legally.“It’s death by 1,000 cuts,” said Faisal Al-Juburi of the Texas-based legal non-profit Raices, which was among several immigrants’ rights groups that challenged Trump’s first travel ban. “And that’s kind of the point. It’s creating layers and layers of restrictions.”Trump’s first travel ban in January 2017, issued days after he took office, targeted the predominantly Muslim countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. The order came as a shock – including to many administration officials. Customs and Border Protection officials were initially given little guidance on how to enact the ban. Lawyers and protesters rushed to international airports where travellers were stuck in limbo. Confusion spread through colleges and tech companies in the US, and refugee camps across the world.This time, Trump’s travel ban came as no surprise. He had cued up the proclamation 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. Though he finally signed a proclamation enacting the ban on Wednesday, it will not take effect until 9 June – allowing border patrol officers and travellers a few days to prepare.The ban includes several exemptions, including for people with visas who are already in the United States, green-card holders, dual citizens and athletes or coaches traveling to the US for major sporting events such as the World Cup or the Olympics. It also exempts Afghans eligible for the special immigrant visa program for those who helped the US during the war in Afghanistan.But the policy, which is likely to face legal challenges, will undoubtedly once again separate families and disproportionately affect people seeking refuge from humanitarian crises.“This is horrible, to be clear … and it’s still something that reeks of arbitrary racism and xenophobia,” Al-Juburi said. “But this does not yield the type of chaos that January 2017 yielded, because immigration overall has been upended to such a degree that the practice of immigration laws is in a state of chaos.”In his second term, Trump has taken unprecedented steps to tear down legal immigration. He has eliminated the legal status of thousands of international students and instructed US embassies worldwide to stop scheduling visa interviews as it prepares to ramp up social media vetting for international scholars.The administration has arrested people at immigration check-ins, exiled asylum seekers to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, and detained scholars and travellers at airports without reason. Although Trump’s travel ban excludes green-card holders, his Department of Homeland Security has made clear that it can and will revoke green cards as it sees fit – including in the cases of student activists Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The first Muslim ban was very targeted, it was brutal, it was immediate, and it was massive,” said Nihad Awad, the executive director at the Council on American–Islamic Relations. “Now, the administration is not only targeting nations with certain religious affiliations, but also people of color overall, people who criticise the US government for its funding of the genocide in Gaza.”And this new travel ban comes as many families are still reeling and recovering from Trump’s first ban. “We’re looking at, essentially, a ban being in place potentially for eight out of 12 years,” said Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council. “And even in that period where the Biden administration lifted the ban, it was still very hard for Iranians to get a visa.”Iranian Americans who came to the US fleeing political persecution back home, who couldn’t return to Iran, have in some cases been unable to see their parents, siblings or other loved ones for years. “You want your parents to be able to come for the birth of a child, or to come to your wedding,” Costello said. “So this is a really hard moment for so many families. And I think unfortunately, there’s much more staying power for this ban.”Experts say the new ban is more likely to stand up to legal challenges as his first ban. It also doesn’t appear to have registered the same intense shock and outrage, culturally.“The first time, we saw this immediate backlash, protests at airports,” said Costello. “Now, over time, Trump has normalized this.” More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge blocks Trump’s ban on Harvard’s foreign students from entering the US

      by

      A district judge in Boston has blocked the Trump administration’s ban on Harvard’s international students from entering the United States after the Ivy League university argued the move was illegal.Harvard had asked the judge, Allison Burrough, to block the ban, pending further litigation, arguing Trump had violated federal law by failing to back up his claims that the students posed a threat to national security.“The Proclamation denies thousands of Harvard’s students the right to come to this country to pursue their education and follow their dreams, and it denies Harvard the right to teach them. Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the school said in a filing to the judge.The filing also argued that the national security argument was flawed as the ban did not stop the same people from entering the country, it only barred them from entering to attend Harvard.Harvard amended its earlier lawsuit, which it had filed amid a broader dispute with the Republican president, to challenge the ban, which Trump issued on Wednesday in a proclamation.White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson earlier called Harvard “a hotbed of anti-American, antisemitic, pro-terrorist agitators”, claims that the school has previously denied.“Harvard’s behavior has jeopardized the integrity of the entire US student and exchange visitor visa system and risks compromising national security. Now it must face the consequences of its actions,” Jackson said in a statement.The suspension was intended to be initially for six months but can be extended. Trump’s proclamation also directs the state department to consider revoking academic or exchange visas of any current Harvard students who meet his proclamation’s criteria.The Trump administration has launched a multifront attack on the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, freezing billions of dollars in grants and other funding and proposing to end its tax-exempt status, prompting a series of legal challenges.Harvard argues the administration is retaliating against it for refusing to accede to demands to control the school’s governance, curriculum and the ideology of its faculty and students.Trump’s directive came a week after Burroughs announced she would issue a broad injunction blocking the administration from revoking Harvard’s ability to enrol international students, who make up about a quarter of its student body.Harvard said in Thursday’s court filing that the proclamation was “a patent effort to do an end-run around this Court’s order”.The university sued after the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, announced on 22 May that her department was immediately revoking Harvard’s student and exchange visitor program certification, which allows it to enrol foreign students.Noem’s action was temporarily blocked almost immediately by Burroughs. On the eve of a hearing before her last week, the department changed course and said it would instead challenge Harvard’s certification through a lengthier administrative process.Wednesday’s two-page directive from Trump said Harvard had “demonstrated a history of concerning foreign ties and radicalism” and had “extensive entanglements with foreign adversaries”, including China.It said Harvard had seen a “drastic rise in crime in recent years while failing to discipline at least some categories of conduct violations on campus”, and had failed to provide sufficient information to the homeland security department about foreign students’ “known illegal or dangerous activities”.The school in Thursday’s court filing said those claims were unsubstantiated. More

    • 200 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: President’s union with Musk up in flames as feud publicly spirals

      by

      The relationship between the richest man in the world and the most powerful one has spectacularly exploded, as Elon Musk publicly agreed Donald Trump should be impeached and linked him to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Musk stepped down from his role as a special government employee on 28 May after showing discontent with Trump’s tax spending bill, officially known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but had until this week stayed relatively restrained in his remarks.But in series of posts on Thursday, the tech billionaire turned aggressively against the president, who had also begun publicly mocking Musk.“Time to drop the really big bomb: Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” Musk wrote. His comments came after Trump threatened to cut subsidies for Musk’s companies as it would save “billions” and accused Musk of acting out of self-interest.Here are the key stories at a glance:Musk calls for Trump to be impeached as extraordinary feud escalatesAmid the feud, Musk responded to a social media post in which a prominent Musk supporter and right-wing activist suggested Trump should be impeached and replaced by the vice-president, JD Vance, to which Musk replied, “Yes”.The Musk-Trump alliance began to unravel publicly earlier this week, when Musk described the tax spending bill as a “disgusting abomination” that the tech billionaire highlighted would add $2.4tn to the deficit over the next decade, citing a non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimate.Read the full storyTesla shares plunge, wiping $152bn off companyTesla shares dropped by about 14.2% on Thursday at market close, wiping roughly $152bn off the value of the company as the feud between Musk, the company’s CEO, and Trump erupted into full public view. One of Musk’s complaints was that Trump was looking to scrap a subsidy that helps Americans buy EVs, including those made by Tesla.Read the full storyEyes on Senate Republicans as Trump and Musk feud over tax and spend billAmid the dramatic row, eyes are now turning to Republican lawmakers weighing whether to pass the so-called One Big, Beautiful Bill Act in the Senate. It was approved by just a single vote in the House of Representatives with no Democratic support last month.Read the full storyTrump says it may be better to let Ukraine and Russia ‘fight for a while’Trump has said it may be better to let Ukraine and Russia “fight for a while” rather than pursue peace immediately, as the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, urged him to increase pressure on Russia.Read the full storyUS sanctions four ICC judgesThe United States is imposing sanctions on four judges from the international criminal court for what it has called its “illegitimate actions” targeting the United States and Israel. The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced the sanctions in a statement, targeting Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou of Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia.Read the full storyTrump and Xi Jinping to meet in ChinaTrump said he had accepted an invitation to meet Xi Jinping in China after a phone conversation on trade was held between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies. In a post on Truth Social, the US president said the “very good” call lasted about 90 minutes and the conversation was “almost entirely focused on trade”.Read the full storyHegseth says Nato allies ‘very close’ to hiking defence spending target to 5%The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said Nato allies were “very close, almost near consensus” to an agreement to significantly raise targets for defence spending to 5% of GDP in the next decade.Read the full storyChinese students facing US visa ban say their lives are in limboChinese students in the United States are questioning their future in the country after the state department announced last week that it would “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students and enhance scrutiny of future applications from China and Hong Kong. The Guardian’s Amy Hawkins shares their stories.Read the full story.What else happened today:

      Trump has heaped criticism on the former German chancellor Angela Merkel for opening up her country to refugees, telling her successor: “I told her it shouldn’t have happened.”

      A leading TV weatherman in Florida has warned viewers on air that he may not be able to properly inform them of incoming hurricanes because of cuts by the Trump administration to federal weather forecasting.

      Joe Biden accused Trump of “distraction” after he launched an investigation into the former Democratic president’s time in office, claiming Biden’s top aides had covered up his cognitive decline and taken decisions on his behalf.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 4 June 2025. More

    • 250 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump v Musk: the two worst people in the world are finally having a big, beautiful breakup | Arwa Mahdawi

      by

      If you paid attention during physics class you will remember the third law of ego-dynamics. Namely: when two egos of equal mass occupy the same orbit, the system will eventually become unstable, resulting in an explosive separation and some very nasty tweets.To see this theory in action please have a gander at the dramatic collapse of the Donald Trump and Elon Musk bromance. The news has been a nonstop horror show for what feels like forever. Watching two of the very worst people in the world direct their nastiness at each other is extremely cathartic.While I won’t contain my glee, I will collect myself long enough to go over the backstory. First, as you know, Musk spent $277m to help get Trump elected. If this happened somewhere else we would call it corruption and the US might invade the country to install democracy. But this is the US we’re talking about, so it was fine.After Musk donated all those quids, Trump provided the quo. Musk got his Doge gig, through which he weakened all the agencies that were regulating his businesses in the name of saving the US a load of money.This is the point where things started to go wrong and Musk’s reputation started to tank. Over the years the billionaire had managed to convince a depressingly large number of people that he was some sort of genius rocket man with anti-establishment views. Once he became part of the establishment, however, and started slashing federal jobs, a lot of people started to get annoyed with how much influence he had over their lives.Musk may be a space cadet but even he could see how much he was destroying his brand. It didn’t help, of course, that Tesla shares were dropping.So a week ago he did the sensible thing and announced that he was leaving his role with the Trump administration. Rather more interestingly, however, the “first buddy” publicly criticized Trump’s marquee tax bill. Whispers of a rift between Musk and Trump started circulating.At first when Musk parted ways with the Trump administration I thought the public divorce might be smoke and mirrors: a mutually beneficial PR exercise. Trump got rid of a creepy weirdo who nobody liked and kept causing him problems. Musk got to show his worried investors that he was putting all his energy back into the companies he’s supposed to be running. Rumours of a fallout, I thought, were greatly exaggerated.On Thursday, however, things escalated to the point where I don’t think this fallout can possibly be manufactured or exaggerated.Thursday afternoon, you see, is when the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein entered the chat. Writing on the social network he spent billions buying, Musk tweeted: “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” To be extra messy he added: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”It’s worth noting that Musk, a man who reportedly foists his sperm on every woman of a certain age that he meets, has a well-documented history of calling other people sex offenders. The self-sabotage probably started when he called the British cave explorer Vernon Unsworth a “pedo guy” in 2018, without any justification, after Unsworth helped rescue 12 boys trapped in a Thai cave. Musk, in case you had forgotten, had made a lot of noise about how he was going to rescue the kids with a very special little submarine. He did not, in fact, rescue any children and Unsworth hurt the billionaire’s feelings when he suggested Musk “stick his submarine where it hurts”.Still, while Musk does not think before he tweets, this seems a tad reckless even for him. It certainly goes well beyond the bounds of “manufactured PR brawl” and enters “burning bridges” territory. And, of course, having been in bed with the guy you’ve just implied was in Epstein’s circle doesn’t exactly make you look good does it?As well as tweeting about Epstein, Musk also said Trump would have “lost the election” if he hadn’t intervened with his hundreds of millions. Musk also suggested that he might start a new political party.Trump, meanwhile, hasn’t exactly been holding his tongue. He called Musk “crazy” and threatened to cut off government contracts with the billionaire’s companies.So is this the end of a big, beautiful friendship? Is it, as conspiracy theorist and Trump ally Laura Loomer put it: “a Big beautiful breakup”?While it feels like it, we should remember that Trump has kissed and made up with his haters before. While the president has very thin skin (all that bronzer can wreak havoc on the epidermis), he’s also a pragmatist.Just look at “Little Marco” AKA Marco Rubio AKA the secretary of state. Before the 2016 election, Rubio described Trump as a “con artist” and suggested he had bladder issues. Trump, meanwhile, called Rubio a “nervous basket case” who was the sweatiest person he’d ever met. “It’s disgusting,” he said. “We need somebody that doesn’t have whatever it is that he’s got.” Various other barbs were exchanged but, almost a decade on, all seems to be forgiven. The two men are now as thick as thieves.It’s also possible that, as a simple woman, I can’t comprehend the testosterone-infused intricacies of what’s going on with Musk and Trump. Conservative commentator Jack Posobiec helpfully tweeted: “Some of y’all cant handle 2 high agency males going at it and it really shows. This is direct communication (phallocentric) vs indirect communication (gynocentric).”Still, while there may eventually be some sort of reconciliation, I for one am enjoying the drama. I think we all are. Well, maybe not Kanye West AKA Ye. On Thursday the disgraced rapper tweeted: “Brooooos please nooooo […] We love you both so much.” As Musk might say himself: bet you did Nazi that coming. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Musk calls for Trump to be impeached as extraordinary feud escalates

      by

      Elon Musk called for Donald Trump to be impeached after mocking his connections to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the president threatened to cancel federal contracts and tax subsidies for Musk’s companies in an extraordinary social media feud on Thursday.The deterioration of their once close relationship into bitter acrimony came over the course of several remarkable hours during which the president and the world’s richest man hurled deeply personal insults over matters significant and insignificant.In the most churlish moment of the astonishing saga, Musk said on X the reason the Trump administration had not released the files into Epstein was because they implicated the president. He later quote-tweeted a post calling for Trump to be removed and said Trump’s tariffs would cause a recession.“Time to drop the really big bomb: Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” Musk wrote, after Trump threatened to cut subsidies for Musk’s companies as it would save “billions”.The direct shots at Trump were the latest twist in the public feud over a Republican spending bill that Musk had criticized. Trump and Musk had been careful not to hit each other directly, but the pair discarded restraint as it escalated online.The bizarre drama served to underscore the degree to which Trump and Musk’s relationship has been one of mutual convenience, despite the White House claiming for months that they were simply ideologically aligned.It also caused the rightwing writer Ashley St Clair, who gave birth to Musk’s 14th known child and sued Musk for child support, to weigh in. “Let me know if u need any breakup advice,” she posted on X, tagging Trump.Shares in Tesla, Musk’s electronic vehicle company, fell almost 15% on Thursday afternoon with the decline timed to when Trump’s remarks began. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, is not publicly traded, but competitors to SpaceX rose on the news.For weeks, Musk has complained about the budget bill, and used the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimating the bill would add $2.4tn to the deficit over the next decade as an opening to condemn the legislation as a “disgusting abomination”.On Thursday, Trump appeared to finally have had enough of Musk’s complaints. Speaking in the Oval Office as the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, looked on in bemusement, Trump mocked Musk’s recent black eye and questioned why he didn’t cover it up.“You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the Oval desk. Even with a black eye. I said, do you want a little makeup? He said, no, I don’t think so. Which is interesting,” Trump said. “Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will any more.”Trump then ratcheted up his barbs against Musk, accusing him of turning against the bill solely out of self-interest, as the bill did not benefit Tesla, Musk’s electronic vehicle company. Trump also pulled the nomination of Musk’s preferred candidate to lead Nasa.“I’m very disappointed with Elon,” Trump said. “He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out we’re going to cut the EV mandate.”Musk then went on the warpath.Within minutes of Trump’s comments appearing in a clip on X, where Musk was responding in real time, Musk accused the president of lying about the bill, and accused Trump of being ungrateful for the millions he spent to get him elected.“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk said in a post on X. He added: “Such ingratitude.”Musk taking credit for Trump’s election win initially threatened to be the touchpoint for their relationship, given Trump had made a point to say that Musk’s contributions had no effect on him winning the battleground state of Pennsylvania.But then Trump posted on Truth Social that he had fired Musk from his role as a special adviser because he was “wearing thin” at the White House, and Musk responded: “Such an obvious lie. So sad.”It was less than a half an hour later that Musk fired off his Epstein tweet, in effect accusing him of being part of an alleged child sexual abuse ring linked to Epstein, using a dog whistle for the Maga movement to try to set them against the president.In doing so, Musk ignored his own connections to Epstein. In 2014, like Trump, Musk was photographed at a party with Ghislaine Maxwell, a former Epstein girlfriend who was convicted in 2021 on charges that she helped the financier’s sex-trafficking activities.The public feud comes after a remarkable partnership that lasted longer than many Democrats on Capitol Hill and in Trump’s orbit predicted.Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars on Trump’s re-election campaign through his specially created America Pac, which shouldered a large portion of Trump’s door-knocking campaign, although the actual impact of that ground-game effort is unclear. More

    • 188 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump and Musk trade barbs as rift over tax and spend bill erupts into open

      by

      A public feud erupted between Donald Trump and Elon Musk on Thursday, with the president saying he was “very disappointed” by the former adviser’s opposition to his top legislative priority, and Musk firing back that Trump would not have won election without his financial support.The falling-out came days after Musk had stepped down as head of Trump’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and then pivoted to attacking the One Big Beautiful Bill, which would extend tax cuts, fund beefed-up immigration enforcement and impose new work requirements for enrollees of federal safety net programs.While the Tesla CEO has focused his complaints on the price tag of the bill, which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates will add $2.4tn to the deficit over the next decade, Trump accused him of turning against it because of provisions revoking incentives for consumers to purchase electric vehicles.“I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot,” Trump said, adding that “he knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem until right after he left.”“Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will any more,” the president said.Musk responded almost immediately on X, saying that the president’s comment was “false”, and “this bill was never shown to me even once”. He then pivoted to personal attacks on Trump, after praising him just days earlier in an Oval Office appearance to mark the end of his time leading Doge.“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” he said, responding to a video of Trump’s remarks. “Such ingratitude.”The tech boss’s criticism has become the latest obstacle facing the One Big Beautiful Bill , which the House of Representatives approved last month by a single vote.The Senate this week began considering the bill, not long after Musk commenced the barrage of tweets over its cost, which he warned would undo Doge’s efforts to save the government money by cancelling programs and pushing federal workers out of their jobs. Musk said he believed the initiative could reduce spending by $1tn, though its own dashboard shows it has saved less than 20% of that amount since Trump was inaugurated.The House speaker, Mike Johnson, spent weeks negotiating with his fractious Republican majority to get the bill passed narrowly through his chamber, and on Wednesday said he had been trying to speak with Musk about his concerns. In an interview with Bloomberg TV on Thursday, he called the Tesla CEO “a good friend” and said the two had exchanged text messages ahead of a call he expected to take place that morning.View image in fullscreen“I just want to make sure that he understands what I think everybody on Capitol Hill understands. This is not a spending bill, my friends, this is a a budget reconciliation bill. And what we’re doing here is delivering the America first agenda,” Johnson said.“He seems pretty dug in right now, and I can’t quite understand the motivation behind it,” the speaker added.Later in the day, Johnson told reporters at the Capitol that the call did not take place, but that the disagreement “isn’t personal”. On X, Musk publicly questioned Johnson’s resolve to cut government spending, prompting the speaker to reply that he “has always been a lifelong fiscal hawk”.The Senate’s Republican leaders have shown no indication that they share Musk’s concerns. Instead, they are eyeing changes to some aspects of the measure that were the result of hard-fought negotiations in the House, and could throw its prospects of passage into jeopardy.One issue that has reappeared is the deductibility of state and local tax (Salt) payments, which the tax bill passed under Trump in 2017 limited to $10,000 per household. House Republicans representing districts in Democratic-run states that have higher tax burdens managed to get a provision increasing the deduction to $40,000 into the One Big Beautiful Bill act.But there are almost no Republican senators representing blue states. The majority leader, John Thune, said after a meeting with Trump on Wednesday that his lawmakers were not inclined to keep that provision as they negotiate the bill.“We also start from a position that there really isn’t a single Republican senator who cares much about the Salt issue. It’s just not an issue that plays,” Thune said.That could upset the balance of power in the House, where Republicans can lose no more than three votes on any bill that passes along party lines. More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US state department says World Cup fans ‘want to see’ Donald Trump’s travel ban

      by

      A US state department spokesperson on Thursday claimed that attendees of the upcoming World Cup and Olympics should support the restrictions on travel from 19 countries ordered by Donald Trump.On Wednesday evening, the US president signed a sweeping order banning travel from 12 countries and restricting travel from seven others, reviving and expanding a policy from his first term.“I think people from around the world, and Americans going to these events, would want to see actions like this,” said US state department spokesperson Tommy Pigott at a press briefing on Thursday afternoon. “This is part of what it means to host an event. We take security concerns extremely seriously, we want people to be able to go to the World Cup and do so safely.”The order claims at various points that the restrictions are a response to supposed deficiencies in each country’s own vetting procedures. Pressed on Thursday on what relevance other country’s procedures had on the US’s ability to vet immigrants themselves, Pigott declined to elaborate.Nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen will be “fully” restricted from entering the US, according to Wednesday’s proclamation. Meanwhile, the entry of nationals of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be partly restricted. The order is set to go into effect on 9 June.The order does contain an exception for “any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, travelling for the World Cup, Olympics, or other major sporting event as determined by the secretary of state.” However, that exception does not explicitly cover a number of specific cases or situations that will be relevant for players from affected countries who intend to play in the United States.First, the exception does not specify whether the “World Cup” referred to in the order includes the Club World Cup, which starts this month and is being hosted by the US. Asked by the Guardian whether the Club World Cup – in which a number of players from the banned countries are due to play – was included in the exception, a state department spokesperson declined to comment other than to say they would not get into hypotheticals or specific cases.Fifa also declined to comment to the Guardian when asked about this distinction and whether the organization was involved in lobbying Trump to carve out this exception as part of the travel ban.The definition of “major event” is also left open to interpretation, making it unclear whether or not this summer’s Gold Cup qualifies. That tournament, the regional soccer championship for North and Central America and the Caribbean will feature Haiti, who are scheduled to play the United States in Austin, Texas on 19 June in addition to group games in San Diego, California and Arlington, Texas.A spokesperson for Concacaf, the confederation that oversees the Gold Cup, did not respond to a request for comment. The state department declined to comment.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe order also lays out a number of exceptions regarding current visa holders, providing a list of visa types for which holders will not be subject to travel restrictions. The P-1 visa most often issued to professional soccer players in MLS, the NWSL and other leagues is not listed among those who qualify for the exception, but specific type of banned visas are specified for individual countries in the order.Venezuela, for example, has various types of B, F, M and J visas that are banned under the order. That means that the order does not impact P-1 visas issued to nationals of Venezuela. MLS currently has three players on international duty with Venezuela. One, the San Jose Earthquakes’ Josef Martínez, became a US citizen last year. The other two, Inter Miami’s Telasco Segovia and LAFC’s David Martínez, are recent arrivals to MLS and do not yet have permanent residency. Venezuela are set to play a World Cup qualifier on Thursday night against Bolivia, and are scheduled for another at Uruguay on Tuesday 10 June – one day after the ban is set to be enforced.An MLS spokesperson declined to elaborate when asked if there were concerns about the Venezuelan players’ immigration status. Asked on Thursday if the travel ban could impact current US visa holders from these countries, Pigott said that the exceptions will apply on a “case-by-case basis.” More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump and Musk’s spectacular bust-up – podcast

      by

      Archive: Fox News, CBS News, CNBC, Associated Press, ABC 7 Chicago, NBC
      Listen to Today in Focus’s episode about Musk city
      Subscribe to the Guardian’s new narrative series Missing in the Amazon
      Send your questions and feedback to politicsweeklyamerica@theguardian.com
      Help support the Guardian. Go to theguardian.com/politcspodus More