U.S. travel ban redux: What’s different this time?

As widely reported, a new travel ban was issued by the White House last week which took effect on Monday.

Surprisingly, based on the official list of the banned and/or restricted countries, it appears that the Trump administration has completely ignored the contents of the original drafts leaked to the media a few months ago.

Neither does the new list mirror the original travel ban issued under the first Trump administration.

To recall, the original Muslim Travel Ban, while barreling through a cascade of federal court challenges from its original inception in January 2017 until its judicial acknowledgment of validity the following year, was forced to undergo a series of statutory facelifts and revisions before its final toned down version got the stamp of approval from a divided US Supreme Court.

As a result, nationals of seven countries, namely, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, North Korea and Venezuela — except those with valid US permanent residency or visas — were banned indefinitely from traveling to the US.

The ban was lifted when the Democrats took over the helm of the government in January 2021.

After the Republicans recaptured the White House last year, rumors of a new Muslim Travel Ban began to surface.

Subsequently, draft memos containing a list of more than 40 countries — majority of them non-Muslim territories — were circulated to the media, divided into a three-tiered pit of exclusionary categories ranging from an absolute ban to limited entry restrictions to being subjected to probationary scrutiny.

Based on the leaked drafts, included in the first-tier category were Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan.

Encompassing the second group, which was to be under partial visa restrictions, were Russia, Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Turkmenistan.

Falling under the third category were mostly Third World African nations which, to avoid a partial ban, were supposed to fix their lackadaisical approach toward travel security vetting.

As it turned out, the White House junked the wide-ranging recommendations in the draft memos and instead adopted a more limited and toned down version of the ban to focus on the following countries: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.

Only Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen were on the original Muslim Travel Ban list.

Additionally, nationals of seven other countries face partial visa restrictions: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Notably absent from the final version were Russia, North Korea, Belarus, and Syria, which had originally appeared in the leaked drafts.

Exempted from the ban are green card holders, dual US citizens, immediate relatives of American citizens, certain athletes, special Afghan immigrants, diplomats, official NATO and UN visitors, children adopted by US citizens, those with valid visas (although still subject to discretionary entry policy), ethnic minority Iranians fleeing persecution, asylees or refugees admitted to the US before the ban, and those who had served the US government abroad for at least 15 years.

As expected, the Philippines, as Uncle Sam’s long-time ally in the Pacific, and despite its Muslim minority population and Abu Sayyaf connection, and bullet planting (tanim bala)/money roll bribe (pastillas) airport scandals, was absent from the list.