President Donald Trump is taking yet another run at keeping out foreigners he considers undesirable, and Minnesota can expect to be among those states that will suffer for it.
This one is a double shot: another travel ban, this time adding North Korea and, inexplicably, Chad, a small African nation that has been a strong U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism. He includes Venezuela, but that ban is aimed mostly at the regime of Nicolas Maduro, who has made a habit of mocking Trump. In addition to the travel ban, Trump wants to slash the number of refugees allowed entry into the U.S. to 45,000 annually, down from 86,000 last year and far lower than the 110,000 former President Barack Obama had pledged.
John Keller, director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, said the travel ban will wind up hurting the U.S. in addition to those denied entry. Applicants include students from wealthy families, tourists and skilled workers sought by U.S. companies. "The vast majority of those who already have visas are the cream of the crop from those foreign countries," Keller said. "They are generally educated and come from wealth — the type businesses here wish we could get more of. We're hurting ourselves by not letting them in or kicking them out because their visas can't be renewed."
In its first disastrous iteration, the travel ban wound up stranding IT workers in transit, medical personnel bound for the Mayo Clinic and college students. Trump's continued hammering on visitors from Muslim countries has already had his desired chilling effect — visa numbers are dramatically down. No one has been able to show that the country is appreciably safer for denying a few thousand visas a month from those countries. In keeping with Trump's focus on stronger borders, resources would be far better spent tracking down those from any country who overstay their visas.
As for refugees, Trump's new cap is cruel. It makes no distinction between those with questionable backgrounds and those who desperately need the shelter this country can offer and who have much to contribute. The limit of 45,000 is the lowest in decades, at a time when the needs of those fleeing war and persecution have seldom been higher. Minneapolis City Council Member Abdi Warsame, whose ward is home to thousands of Somali refugees, said the cap would prove "devastating" to families hoping to reunify. Trump has maintained that refugees are a net cost to the U.S., but a report by his own Department of Health and Human Services showed that refugees, over a decade, brought in $63 billion more in revenue than they cost. The White House quashed those findings, although they were leaked to the New York Times.
Minnesota, with a long-standing tradition of welcoming refugees, has seen firsthand their contributions, whether Hmong, Somali or Liberian. The Trump administration would be better advised to continue — and even intensify — screening of refugees. Setting an arbitrarily low limit only adds fuel to the fears of many that this administration is bent on curbing certain types of foreigners. That is beneath a nation founded as a haven for immigrants — whatever color or religion.
