A Potential New Muslim and African Ban by Trump Must Be Stopped | Donald Trump

More than a month into US President Donald Trump’s second term, his aggressive crackdown on immigration and asylum seekers has already caused significant harm to countless individuals. Law enforcement has conducted widespread raids across the United States, detaining people and deporting tens of thousands. Additionally, the path to asylum has been blocked for many more.

In response to this onslaught, people have rallied at both local and national levels to protect vulnerable communities. One piece of legislation could make a meaningful difference in this struggle: the National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants (NO BAN) Act, introduced to the US Congress on February 6 by Representative Judy Chu and Senator Chris Coons. The bill aims to establish much-needed limits and accountability for any president seeking to categorically ban refugees, asylum seekers, or individuals of specific faiths or nationalities from entering the US.

Why is this necessary now? Because there is growing concern that Trump is laying the groundwork for a revival of the infamous Muslim and African bans from his first term.

Eight years ago, shortly after taking office, Trump issued an executive order to fulfill his campaign promise of a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Within hours of the order, thousands of travelers from predominantly Muslim countries were detained at airports nationwide as federal agents struggled to determine who could enter the country and who would be barred.

Hundreds of families were separated, and Trump later expanded the ban to include Tanzania, Sudan, Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, and Nigeria—known as the “African ban.” This left people fleeing war, famine, and other humanitarian crises unable to seek refuge in the US.

Over 40,000 people were denied visas due to the Muslim and African bans, which caused a 94 percent drop in Muslim refugee admissions between January and November 2017.

Though the bans have since been rescinded, their traumatic effects persist: families remain separated, individuals have been deprived of critical medical care, travel and visa fees were lost, and anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hatred flourished.

Maral Tabrizi is among those impacted. When she was pregnant in 2018, her parents applied for tourist visas to witness the birth of their first grandchild. Her father’s application was delayed in administrative processing, and by the time they could proceed, the Muslim ban had been upheld by the Supreme Court, resulting in both parents’ visa applications being denied.

Maral was deprived of her parents’ support during pregnancy and postpartum. Suffering from a connective tissue disorder that made daily tasks excruciating, she struggled to return to work as quickly as she had hoped. The emotional toll led to postpartum depression, and she was on antidepressants for over a year. Tragically, her parents will never meet her father-in-law, who passed away while they were waiting to visit the US.

Maral was a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit aimed at compelling the government to reconsider the visa applications of those affected by the bans. Our organization, Muslim Advocates, co-counsels the case. As a result of the lawsuit, a court ordered the government to provide nearly 25,000 affected individuals with a fee-waived visa reconsideration process, which is still being implemented today.

However, President Trump is now poised to enact a potentially broader travel ban, and his administration may target individuals with legal status for questioning and monitoring simply because they are citizens of banned countries or are deemed “hostile” by the administration.

This is why, since 2019, Muslim Advocates and our partners in the No Muslim Ban Ever coalition have championed Representative Chu’s and Senator Coons’s NO BAN Act. If passed, the legislation would extend the nondiscrimination provisions of immigration law to include religion, alongside race, sex, and nationality. It would also require that any travel restrictions imposed under Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) Section 212(f) be based on specific and credible facts, narrowly tailored to address a compelling government interest. Additionally, it mandates that the secretaries of the US Department of State and Homeland Security notify Congress before implementing any such restrictions and provide a briefing within 48 hours.

Without the constraints of the NO BAN Act, presidents will continue to abuse their power by closing borders arbitrarily or based on thinly veiled religious or racial bias. Just last year, former President Joe Biden used the INA 212(f) authority to shut down the border, potentially violating US immigration law. Similarly, Trump invoked 212(f) to close the southern border in January. The NO BAN Act seeks to curb such cruelty and offer an alternative to the hate and racism that fuel it.

In a world facing numerous humanitarian crises, the decisions we make today can determine life or death for countless individuals. In 2017, the No Muslim Ban Ever coalition emerged from the movement that brought people from all walks of life to airports to protest the first Muslim ban. Today, lawmakers must take a bold stand for America’s highest ideals of religious freedom and refuge from tyranny by passing the NO BAN Act.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.