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NERMEEN SHAIKH: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Nermeen Shaikh in New York.
AMY GOODMAN: And I’m Amy Goodman in Salt Lake City, Utah.
We’re looking now at the growing condemnation of President Trump’s travel ban, which went into effect Monday, banning citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and the Republic of Congo — not to be confused with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It also imposes heightened restrictions on people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela who are outside the U.S. and don’t hold a valid visa.
Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown said he may challenge the ban with what he called a “hostile” Supreme Court. Brown spoke Sunday with Washington state Representative Darya Farivar, the state’s first elected Middle Eastern politician, first Iranian American woman elected to the Washington state Legislature.
REP. DARYA FARIVAR: This ban will hurt people, real people. It will tear families apart at life’s most sacred moments, keep loved ones from mourning, celebrating and holding each other close in their final moments. It will steal opportunities from brilliant students who deserve a future. It promises four more years of separation, four more years of sorrow, and we cannot allow this.
ATTORNEY GENERAL NICHOLAS BROWN: The president’s order is unclearly — is clearly unfair, discriminatory and will impact millions and millions of people who pose no risk whatsoever to our country. And when we couple this travel ban with everything else that we are seeing in this country at this moment, including the president’s violent escalation of events in California this week, we know what we are seeing from the president of the United States of America is creeping authoritarianism.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: This follows Trump’s first travel ban in 2017.
Immigrant rights groups have been organizing as the ban takes effect this week, including two organizers who join us now. In New York, Guerline Jozef is co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance. And Murad Awawdeh is president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, usually based in New York City and today in Montgomery, Alabama.
Welcome to both of you to Democracy Now! Guerline, let’s begin with you. Haiti is one of the countries included in this travel ban. So, if you could talk about the impact of that on Haiti, which is dependent not only so much on aid, international aid, but also on remittances from Haitians working in the U.S.?
GUERLINE JOZEF: Thank you so much for having me.
And the reality is what we are seeing right now with the travel ban targeting countries like Haiti. And for those who don’t know, Haiti is literally 90 minutes away from Miami. And instead of addressing the root causes of the issues in Haiti, that are in part caused by U.S. foreign policy towards Haiti, and also looking into how the guns and the money and the ammunition is being funneled through Haiti to continue to destabilize the country, we are punishing Haiti for what is going on right now.
And the attack on Haiti and the multiple other countries, majority-Black and Muslim country — countries, are a clear example of why we’re continuing. We must fight to make sure that people have the right to migrate. In the current ban literally separating families, I spoke to three people as we got the announcement, and two of them were supposed to go visit family in Canada, and they are stuck. They are afraid to leave, not being able to come back to continue their lives and their studies in the United States because they are Haitian passport holders. What will that mean when they try to leave or reenter the country will have a big impact on how the community continues to move forward.
AMY GOODMAN: So, do you know, Guerline, why Haiti was put on this list? And also, our news from the top of the show, the number of internally displaced people has reached a record 1.3 million in Haiti, the International Organization for Migration saying the figures jumped almost 25% since December due to the escalating violence. The kind of impact this total ban will have?
GUERLINE JOZEF: Thank you, Amy.
They are saying that people from Haiti tend to overstay their visas. And I want to clarify a couple of things. For the past almost three years, the consular section of the U.S. Embassy in Haiti has been closed. There is no way for someone in Haiti to be able to access to get a visa. They have to go to a third country to even be able to apply and get a visa if you are a Haitian national.
As you mentioned, 1.3 million people who are completely displaced within the country, and at the same time, we are hearing that there might be a deportation flight to Haiti within the next few days. We are looking into how that will continue in the destabilization of the country, but at the same time, how that impacts people here in the U.S. and around the world, with the trauma and the terror that we continue to see impacting people unable to go to work. I went to church on Sunday. About one-third of the people were afraid to come to church. We are seeing empty churches, empty workplaces. We are seeing the impact of this Trump travel ban and other immigration policies completely destroying communities that are vulnerable. And we must be able to push back.
So, it is imperative that people understand what’s happening. And we continue to say that they are using immigration as a scapegoat to be able to dismantle every fabric of who we are as a country, from DEI to women’s issues to LGBTQ — happy Pride Days to those who are celebrating — and the erasure of African American history. So, they are using immigration and immigrant communities as a scapegoat to continue to divide and conquer. And we are seeing that they have had a lot of practice. But we are here pushing back, fighting on behalf of those communities and making sure that they are protected, from California in San Diego —
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Murad —
GUERLINE JOZEF: — to Los Angeles.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Murad Awawdeh into the conversation, with the New York Immigration Coalition, though today he happens to be in Montgomery. And, Murad, I think that’s interesting you’re in Montgomery, because you have President Trump calling out the National Guard, federalizing it, in Los Angeles. The last time this happened — I mean, it hasn’t happened in 60 years — was in the civil rights era, was to guarantee that the Selma to Montgomery March of civil rights workers, led by Dr. Martin Luther King and John Lewis, would be able to march. That was against the governor at the time. And President Trump now, 60 years later, not because of civil rights issues, but actually against civil rights issues, is making this move. But I wanted to ask you about this ban. In 2017, we were talking about a Muslim ban. This ban of all — absolute ban on this series of countries and partial ban on others, the impact this has?
MURAD AWAWDEH: The impact that this has on U.S. citizens is going to be immense. This means that people who have family abroad, who are in the process of actually trying to do the paperwork to get their family to come visit them, you know, to share the life celebrations that we all love or when we need to say our farewells to family members who pass, will not be possible anymore. This is going to rip families apart. This is going to continue to double and triple down on the terror that this administration is waging against immigrant communities across the board.
And what we need to do is, as my sister Guerline mentioned earlier, is actually stand up and continue to fight back against this. The Trump administration is trying to see how far they can take all that they’re doing to ensure that they can really use immigrant communities as a test case. And I often say this: If some of us don’t have rights in this country, none of us do. This is a really — this is a call to all Americans to start standing up and fighting back. This is going to be the test case. So, there’s always a route that the administration continues to try to find. There was reports yesterday on MSNBC that what they’re doing in L.A., which is horrifying to immigrant communities, but also to Americans, is going to be spread across the country and targeting U.S. cities, like New York City and other blue cities across the country.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Murad, I just want to — because Guerline mentioned that one of the reasons, justifications given by the Trump administration for imposing the travel ban on certain countries was people who overstayed their visas. Now, Chad is an example of a country that’s been banned where almost 50% of people overstay. Spain, for instance, only 2.4% overstay. But the absolute numbers, there is an exponential difference. So, in the case 2023 to 2024, the 50% [overstay rate] from Chad amounted to 377 people, as against 20,000 people from Spain. So, if you could comment on what you think — and we have a minute left — on what the real justification for this ban, the countries that were selected, and then the New York for All Act that you’re advocating?
MURAD AWAWDEH: So, the Trump administration doesn’t need any help in trying to come up with frivolous excuses. That’s all this is. They are looking for excuses to say that this is why they’re doing this. And they don’t need to try to sugarcoat things anymore, because we already know who they are. And we’ve known who they are. They are a administration that is gung ho on destroying what this nation stands for. Immigration and the U.S. is an American value. Like, I don’t know how much more to explain this. But their excuses continue to fly in the face of facts.
And what we’re doing right now across the state of New York is fighting for the New York for All Act, which would prohibit state collusion with immigration enforcement. We have a few days left in the state Legislature, and we’re urging the New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly, as well as Governor Hochul, to really stand up and protect our communities. We need to ensure that we are doing everything that we can to protect New Yorkers. The New York for All Act is a public safety measure. We want to keep all New Yorkers safe, and we can’t do that if we don’t have the laws in place to do it. So we’re calling on our state Legislature to have the courage to stand up and to fight back with us by passing the New York for All Act today.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Murad Awawdeh, New York Immigration Coalition, thanks so much for joining us, and Guerline Jozef, here in New York, of the Haitian Bridge Alliance.
Coming up, Israel is continuing to detain eight people after Israeli Navy commandos intercepted a Gaza-bound boat carrying humanitarian aid. Four others on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla have already been deported. We’ll get an update from a Spanish crew member who’s been deported back to Spain.
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NERMEEN SHAIKH: “Bofou Safou” by Amadou & Mariam, performing in our Democracy Now! studio.
