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President Donald Trump<\/span> on Wednesday signed a proclamation banning travelers from 12 countries from entering the United States and partially restricting visitors from seven other nations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will restore the travel ban, some people call it the Trump travel ban, and keep the radical Islamic terrorists out of our country that was upheld by the Supreme Court,\u201d wrote Trump in a written statement<\/a>.\u00a0The restriction goes into effect on Monday, June 9.<\/p>\n The full ban applies to foreign nationals from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. The partial ban applies to people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.<\/p>\n In a\u00a0video address posted on social media<\/a>, Trump said a recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, \u201cunderscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas.\u201d He added, \u201cWe don\u2019t want \u2019em.\u201d<\/p>\n The man charged with that attack is from Egypt, which is not\u00a0one of the countries listed in the travel ban.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The list overlaps with the sites of U.S. military and CIA misadventures stretching back more than a century, including Afghanistan<\/a>, Cuba<\/a>, Haiti<\/a>, Iran, Laos<\/a>, Libya<\/a>, Somalia<\/a>, and Yemen<\/a>.<\/p>\n The inclusion of Afghanistan angered many who have worked to resettle<\/a> its people in America. The travel ban makes exceptions for Afghans on Special Immigrant Visas, or SIV \u2014 a classification granted to people who worked closely with the U.S. government during the two-decade-long war there. That still leaves many former allies and their families on the outside looking in. The ban also comes as the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s termination<\/a> of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Afghanistan is scheduled to take effect\u00a0on July 14, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n During America\u2019s chaotic withdrawal<\/a> from Afghanistan, the U.S. government helped evacuate <\/a>around 80,000 Afghans who aided U.S. forces, ranging from interpreters to CIA-trained fighters and their families<\/a>, including members of so-called Zero Units<\/a> implicated in the killings of civilians<\/a>.<\/p>\n Afghanistan was also one of the largest sources of resettled refugees, with about 14,000 arrivals in a 12-month period through September 2024. Trump suspended refugee resettlement on his first day back in office.<\/p>\n Andrew Sullivan, a U.S. Army veteran and the executive director of No One Left Behind,\u00a0<\/a>which advocates on behalf of SIV applicants, expressed gratitude for the Trump administration\u2019s exemption for Afghan Special Immigrant Visa holders. \u201cHowever, there are still many allies who served shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States who are being left behind because they do not qualify for the SIV program,\u201d he said. \u201cThis includes those who were injured in the line of duty and were unable to complete a full year of service, the women and men of the Afghan National Army who trained and served with U.S. Special Forces, and many more.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople in other nations fall victim to the same cycle \u2014 trusting U.S. promises, only to be abandoned when perceived strategic interests shift.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Trump\u2019s Afghan abandonment isn\u2019t unique, however. It follows in a long tradition of American desertion of wartime allies that includes partners from Southeast Asia \u2014 like Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia \u2014 to the Middle East.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t a Trump-era phenomenon; it\u2019s a pattern that spans decades, from Vietnam to Afghanistan and from Kurds to Ukrainians,\u201d said Erik Sperling of Just Foreign Policy, an advocacy group critical of mainstream Washington foreign policy.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s no secret that ostensible American partners in the developing world often end up worse off as a result of Washington\u2019s actions. Yet time and again, people in other nations fall victim to the same cycle \u2014 trusting U.S. promises, only to be abandoned when perceived strategic interests shift.\u201d<\/p>\n Afghanistan was not<\/span> part of Trump\u2019s first-term travel ban<\/a> but, in the time since, fell to the Taliban when the U.S. withdrew its forces in 2021 under the Biden administration. This resulted from a peace deal with the Taliban<\/a> signed by the Trump administration in 2020.<\/p>\n\n