The US President’s decision sparked Donald Trump Insert 7 African countries in the travel ban list, wide questions about the foundations on which the decision was built, especially in the absence of a clear link between those countries, according to a report published by a newspaper New York Times American.
The newspaper said that the countries included in the decision are: Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia, the Republic of the Congo, Sudan. Although the common denominator between them is its geographical affiliation with Africa, it is radically different in its political systems, its security reality, and the rates of immigration from it to US.
Inchid standards
The newspaper pointed out that the Trump administration announced that the inclusion of these countries was based on factors such as the existence of a “terrorist threat”, “high rates in exceeding the visa period”, or “lack of cooperation in restoring the stage migrants.”
However, government data indicates that the application of these standards was largely selective, according to the newspaper.
Although countries like Chad, Somalia and Sudan are facing security threats, other African countries are witnessing more violence than armed groups, such as Mali And Niger Burkina Faso was not included in the list, although it is currently governing military systems that have arrived through coups.
Unjustified numbers
According to the data of the US Department of Internal Security, the rates of exceeding the period of residence for citizens from some of these countries in theory are high: Chad (49%), Equatorial Guinea (33%), and the Republic of Congo (30%) in 2023.
But the absolute numbers remain very low, as the number of those who violated the visa period from the seven countries combined is not exceeding 2500 people.
In comparison, more than 15,000 citizens from Jamaica exceeded the permissible residence period in tourism and business visas alone, without the ban.
Also, other African countries are like Nigeria Ghana recorded thousands of cases from exceeding the visa, but it was not included in the list.
The newspaper pointed out that more than 98,000 people from Western and Asian countries – including visa exemption agreements – have exceeded the permissible residence period in 2023, without their countries facing any similar measures.
Is it a collective stigma?
The newspaper quoted Ghanaian political analyst Bright Simons as saying that the US administration “punished entire peoples for the mistakes of individuals.”
He added that it is not logical to hold state governments responsible for actions that cannot actually prevent them, such as exceeding individuals for the duration of their visas.
Simonz suggested alternative solutions, such as imposing financial insurance on visitors during the submission of a visa application, as some countries do, to reduce illegal residency cases without resorting to collective policies “described as discriminatory”.