WASHINGTON, Jun 5, CMC – President Donald Trump has banned Haitians from entering the United States as part of a proclamation that also includes 11 other countries worldwide.
With regards to Haiti, the proclamation states that “hundreds of thousands of illegal Haitian aliens flooded into the United States during the Biden administration,” adding that it “harms American communities”.
Trump had made the allegations against the Haitians during the campaign for the the last presidential election saying that they were eating domestic pets in a small Ohio without any form of proof.
“In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there,” he said then.
From Monday, citizens from Haiti, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, will be banned from travelling to the US.
Trump also announced that people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be subject to a partial ban.
For most countries included on the list, the White House cites a mixture of visa overstay rates and political instability.
Human Rights First said that the new travel ban mirrors much from the first Trump administration.
“There is no clear thread between each. The commonalities are that many of these countries are places that people are fleeing due to conflict, violence and restrictive polices against women and girls and LGTBQ individuals and others,” said Human Rights First official, Robyn Barnard.
She described Trump’s list as “truly punitive” adding “it really feels like it’s about punishment and creating more chaos and disfunction in our immigration system”.
CMC/2025