As President Donald Trump considers sweeping travel restrictions for citizens of more than a dozen countries, Muslims American fears that they soon won’t be able to come and visit as they became a legal permanent resident of the U.S., won’t be able to return home to other states if he travels outside the country.
A draft version of the Trump administration proposal to prohibit and limit citizens of more than 40 countries from entering the United States leaked in early March. The White House said Thursday that it had not yet made a decision on the policy.
More than a half dozen advocate said that anticipation of the new restrictions, along with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s recent detainment of multiple college students from majority-Muslim countries, has led to a climate of rampant anxiety among the American Muslim community.
“U.S. citizens are afraid to travel overseas, believing there’s a possibility they will be prevented by the Trump administration to return, especially if they’re traveling to Muslim countries,” said Robert McCaw, the government affairs director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, America’s largest Muslim civil rights organization.
According to the current decision, Muslim affinity organizations across the U.S. say they are inundated with inquiries from members terrified about the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
Earlier in March, immigration officials detained and targeted Columbia University Student Mahmoud Khalil for deportation over his participation in protests over the war in Gaza. Since then, other students from Muslim-majority countries across U.S. universities have been similarly taken into custody, including 30-year-old Turkish national Rumeysa Ozturkat at Tuft’s University and Iranian student Alireza Doroudi at the University of Alabama.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday the State Department has possibly revoked more than 300 student and visitor visas since Trump took office in mid-January. Rubio said the White House would revoke legal visas for anyone who vandalizes universities and participated in activities that created a “ruckus.” He did not say whether the cases of several students already detained fit that criteria.
