The Dems criticized the White House announcement that the U.S. will add 6 more countries to a controversial travel ban that originally was called a “Muslim ban” by the left, and that Biden called a new “African Ban” on Saturday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led the charge in opposition to the travel ban expansion, describing it as “discrimination disguised as policy.”
“The Trump administration’s expansion of its outrageous, un-American travel ban threatens our security, our values and the rule of law,” her statement reads. “The sweeping rule, barring more than 350 million individuals from predominantly African nations from traveling to the United States, is discrimination disguised as policy.”
It was also no surprise when she added that Democrats will do all in their power to resist the president. “In the Congress and in the Courts, House Democrats will continue to oppose the Administration’s dangerous anti-immigrant agenda. In the coming weeks, the House Judiciary Committee will mark-up and bring to the Floor the NO BAN Act to prohibit religious discrimination in our immigration system and limit the President’s ability to impose such biased and bigoted restrictions.”
On Friday, Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf told reporters that after a “systematic review” of all countries, 6 nations were added to the travel ban list: Burma, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania.
Prior to this expansion, restrictions on immigrant and non-immigrant visas were in place for seven countries, to include Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.
According to Wolf, the additional 6 nations have lighter restrictions than the original 7. “These countries, for the most part, want to be helpful, want to do the right thing, have relationships with the U.S. and are in some cases improving relations, but for a variety of different reasons failed to meet those minimum requirements that we laid out,” he said. “And really the only way to mitigate the risk is to impose these travel restrictions.”
Several 2020 Democrat candidates took the opportunity to voice their latest outrage against President Trump and the expanded travel ban.
Elizabeth Warren called it a “racist, xenophobic Muslim Ban” and promised to reverse it if she is elected.
Bernie Sanders claimed the ban is a “racist travel policy that dehumanizes immigrants and their families for [Trump’s] own political purposes.”
Joe Biden called the ban a “direct betrayal of America’s most fundamental freedom: religious freedom.”
Biden also added another race-baiting tweet, saying the expanded ban is an “‘African Ban,’ … designed to make it harder for black and brown people to immigrate to the United States.”
