Muslim Ban Part II: Bigger and Broader Than Before

The Trump administration is working on a massive expansion of the 2017 travel ban

Photo: Unsplash

Just eight weeks into his second term, President Trump is preparing to make good on his campaign promise to bring back and expand his controversial travel ban. But this time, it's set to be much more extensive than the 2017 version.

According to reports, the Trump administration is considering restrictions on citizens from as many as 43 countries. The draft plan includes:

• A "red list" of 11 countries whose citizens would be completely barred from entering the US: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen

• An "orange list" with somewhat lighter restrictions on numerous other nations

• Uncertainty about whether people with existing visas or green cards would be protected

The list reads like a who's who of Muslim-majority nations, with a few non-Muslim countries added in—a strategy that helped the original ban survive legal challenges.

During his first term, Trump reportedly asked former New York Mayor Rudy Guliani to "figure out how to do it legally." When Trump first took office in January 2017, he wasted no time implementing his promised "Muslim ban." Within days of his inauguration, he signed Executive Order 13769, triggering chaos at airports nationwide.

That order:

• Suspended entry for travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen

• Halted the U.S. refugee program

• Initially even blocked legal permanent residents from returning home

The travel ban was the fulfillment of Trump's campaign promise for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States." While the administration later modified the language to focus on countries rather than religion, Trump's intent was clear from his numerous public statements.

After multiple legal challenges and revisions, the Supreme Court eventually upheld a version of the ban in 2018 in Trump v. Hawaii. The Court chose to focus on the ban's neutral-sounding language rather than Trump's numerous anti-Muslim statements.

The new travel ban proposal comes on the heels of a troubling case that may signal the administration's approach. Last week, officials detained and revoked the green card of Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born former Columbia University student who led campus protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

This unprecedented move–canceling a green card based on political speech–has already sparked legal challenges. But it suggests the administration may be testing the boundaries of its authority over immigration.

The Deeper Impacts

When we talk about travel bans, we often focus on people trying to enter the country. But the effects reach much deeper into communities already in the United States. For Muslims from targeted countries living legally in America, the first travel ban created a climate of fear and isolation:

• Trapped inside America: Many citizens and green card holders became afraid to travel abroad to visit family, fearing they might not be allowed back in.

• Cut off from loved ones: Communication with family in banned countries decreased as people worried these contacts might flag them as "suspicious."

• Financial lifelines severed: Many stopped sending money to family abroad, fearing accusations of funding terrorism.

• Increased surveillance: Border checkpoints became data collection sites, with information shared between CBP, ICE, FBI, and local police.

America’s Long History of Using Bans to Exclude

Trump's travel bans didn't emerge from nowhere. They're part of a long American tradition of using immigration policy to exclude certain groups deemed "undesirable." The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first law specifically banning an entire national group. It prevented Chinese laborers from immigrating and barred Chinese residents from becoming citizens.

In 1889, the Supreme Court upheld this blatantly discriminatory law in Chae Chan Ping v. United States, establishing what legal experts call the "plenary powers doctrine"–the idea that the government has nearly unlimited power over immigration.

Using the Chinese ban as a blueprint, America continued to expand its exclusionary policies:

• Restricting Japanese immigration (1907)

• Banning people from most of Asia and the Pacific (1917)

• Limiting Southern and Eastern Europeans (1921)

• Targeting political dissidents through the "Anarchist Exclusion Acts" (1903, 1918)

The 1924 Immigration Act essentially codified discrimination and doubled down on exclusion, barring nearly all Asian and Pacific Islander immigration and setting tiny quotas for countries outside the Western Hemisphere. It even created the first Border Patrol, focused mainly on the southern border.

The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 relaxed some restrictions but added Section 212(f), which gives presidents the power to ban "any aliens or any class of aliens" they deem "detrimental to the interests of the United States." This is the exact authority Trump used in 2017 and plans to use again.

In 2018, when the Supreme Court upheld former President Donald Trump’s first travel ban in Trump v. Hawaii, Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a stark warning: the Court was repeating one of its darkest mistakes. She compared the decision to the infamous Japanese internment cases from World War II—rulings that legitimized state-sanctioned discrimination under the guise of national security.

During the war, the U.S. government forcibly removed and incarcerated over 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens, in internment camps. The Supreme Court, rather than acting as a check on executive overreach, systematically upheld these measures:

• 1943: Hirabayashi v. United States – The Court upheld the government’s curfews targeting Japanese Americans.

• 1944: Korematsu v. United States – The Court validated the forced removal of Japanese Americans from their homes, though it avoided a direct ruling on internment camps themselves.

Throughout, the Court refrained from explicitly ruling on the constitutionality of the camps, allowing them to persist under the broad justification of national security.

Fast forward to 2018, and Trump v. Hawaii followed a disturbingly similar trajectory. The Court:

• Granted extreme deference to the executive branch, just as it did in the internment cases.

• Ignored Trump’s own statements about wanting a "Muslim ban," much like it had ignored the explicit racial discrimination behind the internment orders.

• Focused solely on the neutral-sounding text of the travel ban while disregarding the clear discriminatory intent behind it.

In a remarkable twist, Chief Justice John Roberts used the same decision to claim that Korematsu was officially overruled—while simultaneously employing similar reasoning to uphold the travel ban. This contradiction underscored how the same flawed logic that justified mass incarceration of Japanese Americans was being repurposed to uphold religious discrimination under a different name.

What’s Next

As we wait for the administration to finalize and announce the expanded travel ban, several big questions loom:

• Will people who already have permission to be in the US be protected, or will they suddenly find themselves unable to return if they travel abroad?

• Will the courts step in, or will they continue giving the president nearly unlimited power over who enters the country?

• What will the long-term impact be on Muslim communities who feel increasingly unwelcome and under surveillance?

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POLICY WATCH: NO BAN ACT

As Trump gears up for Travel Ban 2.0 targeting a staggering 43 countries, Democrats have dusted off the NO BAN Act– legislation that would finally put checks on the president's sweeping powers under Section 212(f), the same legal loophole Trump exploited for his first Muslim ban. This bill would ban religious discrimination in immigration, demand evidence before restricting entry, rein in presidential overreach, force congressional oversight, and give courts meaningful review power. Rep. Judy Chu calls it common sense that "the president shouldn't have unchecked power to ban people based on their faith or where they're from.”

The first Muslim ban affected over 135 million people, and this expanded version threatens hundreds of millions more. While the White House points to the Supreme Court's 2018 ruling as justification, groups like the ACLU and Muslim Advocates are gearing up for another legal battle.

If you care about this issue, now's the time to call your representatives, support these legal challenges, share affected families' stories, document experiences, and stay vigilant.

If you or someone you know might be affected by these changes, email me at chowdhuryj315@gmail.com or reach me on Signal: JennChowdhury.54. Identities can be kept confidential.