Local community members are expressing concern and disappointment over a recent Trump administration decision to expand the list of countries with travel restrictions to the U.S.
The administration added an additional 20 countries to the list on Tuesday — five with complete travel bans and 15 with partial bans.
“Doubling the countries on the Trump administration’s discriminatory and racist travel ban will only serve to make our country and state less safe, less secure and less prosperous,” said Elizabeth Sweet, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, in a statement.
Among the countries added is South Sudan, which received a full travel ban. All nationals from the fully banned countries are restricted from entering the U.S. on either immigrant or nonimmigrant visas.
Panther Alier, co-executive director of Lincoln-based nonprofit South Sudanese Enrichment for Families, said the U.S. has been a strong ally of South Sudan, helping the country in its fight for independence, which it gained in 2011.
The country is currently in the middle of another civil war and hundreds of thousands of people are starving. Alier said many are seeking refugee status, and this ban is just adding another barrier for people seeking a better life.
“Banning them from accessing those opportunities in the U.S. … is counterintuitive,” Alier said. “I feel the South Sudanese basically are being left out in the cold.”
Syria is also now on the fully banned countries list, a move that Worcester psychiatrist Amjad Bahnassi called performative and unnecessary.
Bahnassi moved to the United States from Syria more than 40 years ago, and said the U.S. is the best country in the world because it has opened the doors for a variety of people who all contribute and add something different to the proverbial melting pot.
“That’s what made this country great,” Bahnassi said. “It’s the new blood. People want to work, want to serve. They come here because they have dreams. And instead of us taking advantage of that, we’re blocking that.”
Though slightly less restricted, people from countries on the partial ban list still face hurdles receiving immigrant and certain nonimmigrant visas.
Justice Igbokwe moved to Massachusetts from Nigeria four years ago. Now, the Trump administration has added Nigeria to the partial ban list, saying that militant groups operate freely in certain parts of the country and have created “substantial screening and vetting difficulties.”
Igbokwe said that for many Nigerians, the only hope is to look for opportunities outside of the country — mostly in America.
“And if the country you’re looking up to becomes hostile, then it’s like you’re doomed,” he said.
