Trump’s New Travel Ban

And more executive actions from the last 24 hours.

Photo by the White House

Today is Day 136 of Donald Trump’s second term, and if you thought the constant churn of executive actions was slowing down: think again. Here’s a breakdown of major actions from the administration in the last 24 hours:

Travel ban. Trump signed a proclamation banning travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 countries (Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen) and restricting travel by citizens of seven more (Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela).

The directive, which is set to go into effect on Monday, revives a controversial policy from Trump’s first term, which was twice blocked by the courts and then revised. Ultimately, a third version was upheld by the Supreme Court. In a video, Trump said that the necessity of a travel ban was “underscored” by last weekend’s attack in Boulder, Colorado on a group calling for the release of the Israeli hostages. The suspect in that attack was an Egyptian man who overstayed a tourist visa.

Egypt is not one of the countries impacted by Wednesday’s proclamation, although it did instruct officials to review the “screening and vetting” procedures for Egyptian nationals. This could be an attempt to withstand legal scrutiny: one of the factors that doomed Trump’s first two travel bans was a lack of adequate procedure. On the first day of his second term, Trump ordered officials to report on countries that might warrant a travel ban; it is possible that the administration wants a paper trail to prove that due diligence was done concerning each country on the list, and such a review had not yet been carried out concerning Egypt.

Harvard visas. Trump signed a separate proclamation that would effectively block foreign students from attending Harvard, by suspending entry into the U.S. for at least six months for foreign nationals seeking visas to study at the university. The Department of Homeland Security had already attempted a similar move, which was blocked by a federal judge; having the order come from Trump himself allows the administration to invoke the same legal authority as the travel ban, Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the president to “impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

Columbia accreditation. The Education Department announced that it had notified Columbia University’s accreditor that the school was no longer meeting its standards for accreditation due to its “violation of federal antidiscrimination laws” stemming from “indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students on its campus.”

The ultimate decision to accredit Columbia belongs to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the non-profit organization to whom the Trump administration sent its Wednesday missive. Under federal regulations, the commission is required to notify Columbia that the government has determined it is not in compliance with the law; if the university then fails to enact a plan to come into compliance, the commission can revoke the school’s accreditation. Without accreditation, a university cannot receive federal student aid (which almost half of Columbia’s students receive).

Texas lawsuit. The Justice Department sued Texas on Wednesday to block its law offering in-state tuition at public universities to undocumented students who reside in the state. Within hours, Texas had sided with the federal government in court and a federal judge had issued an order blocking the state law as unconstitutional.

Some commentators compared the sudden series of events to a “sue-and-settle” practice, in which a government allows itself to be sued by an outside interest group and refuses to defend itself, negotiating a settlement that both sides prefer anyway (but potentially could not have achieved on their own: an effort to repeal the Texas law has stalled in the state legislature). The state law dates back to 2001, when it was championed by then-Gov. Rick Perry.

Biden probe. Finally, Trump signed a memorandum directing Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Counsel David Warrington to investigate whether officials in the Biden administration “conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state” and to carry out executive actions in his name, including by using an autopen to sign executive orders without his knowledge.

The memorandum alleges that Biden “suffered from serious cognitive decline” during his term and claims that “there are serious doubts” about whether Biden was aware of the executive actions being implemented towards the end of his administration. There is no evidence that Biden’s aides were approving major actions without his consent.

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What else you should know…

• In a 69-page order that begins with references to Kafka, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration must facilitate a hearing process for the nearly 140 Venezuelan immigrants who were deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act without an opportunity to challenge their removals. The Supreme Court has ruled, since those deportations, that other migrants removed under the Alien Enemies Act must receive due process; this order would extend that right to the migrants who were removed under the law before that ruling. Boasberg directed the administration to inform the court by June 11 how they plan to offer due process to the migrants, who are currently being housed in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison.

• In other legal losses for the administration: A federal judge in New York temporarily blocked Trump from eliminating the Job Corps, a federal job training program. A federal judge in Colorado halted the administration’s attempt to quickly deport the wife and children of the Egyptian man accused of carrying out the attack in Boulder. And a federal appeals court declined to lift a ruling blocking the administration from dismantling the Education Department.

• And another notable development: The Guatemalan man known in court as “O.C.G.”, one of the migrants I wrote about last week that the administration had been accused of wrongfully deporting, is back in the U.S. after Trump officials complied with a judicial ruling ordering them to “facilitate” his return.

• NYT: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Endorses Zohran Mamdani as Top Choice for Mayor

• WSJ: Trump Is Losing Patience With Musk’s Outbursts Over Megabill

• NBC: Former Biden White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says she is leaving the Democratic Party

• Reuters: FEMA staff baffled after head said he was unaware of US hurricane season, sources say