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Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration is stopping all immigration purposes from 19 nations in response to final week’s lethal taking pictures of two Nationwide Guard troopers in Washington, DC.
What’s altering? The pause covers 12 nations that have been already beneath a journey ban imposed earlier this 12 months, in addition to seven others going through partial restrictions. Below the brand new coverage, all inexperienced card and citizenship purposes shall be halted for immigrants from these nations. US Citizenship and Immigration Companies additionally mentioned that immigration circumstances relationship again to the beginning of the Biden administration shall be re-reviewed.
The affected nations are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
What’s the context? That is a part of a broader immigration crackdown by the Trump administration in response to the DC taking pictures, together with a pause on asylum purposes. The taking pictures suspect, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is an Afghan nationwide who labored with a CIA-backed paramilitary unit in his dwelling nation earlier than getting into the US in 2021.
What’s the massive image? Even earlier than the latest restrictions, President Donald Trump (and White Home deputy chief of employees/anti-immigration zealot Stephen Miller) choked off many sources of immigration to the US. In October, the Trump administration set its annual refugee cap at simply 7,500 folks, in comparison with 125,000 beneath President Joe Biden. Of these 7,500, almost all could also be white South Africans — beneficiaries of what’s largely an imagined disaster on the a part of the Trump administration.
Why does this matter? Trump is seizing on the DC taking pictures as a possibility to advance a much wider, a lot uglier anti-immigration agenda, with a selected deal with excluding immigrants from non-white nations. The newest instance of that got here simply yesterday: Trump attacked Somali immigrants in a Cupboard assembly, calling them “rubbish” and telling reporters that “I don’t need them in our nation.”
And with that, it’s time to log out…
There are few methods to really feel higher concerning the state of the world, nevertheless dangerous the information is likely to be, than to spend time with associates in particular person (ideally with telephones far-off). That may take plenty of kinds, however my colleague Allie Volpe has a selected advice: Strive bringing again the slumber occasion. Merely coexisting with associates in an open-ended hangout, she writes, is an effective way to chill out and deepen friendships, no matter your age. You may learn her full, compelling case right here.
As at all times, thanks for studying, have an important night, and we’ll see you again right here tomorrow!