My latest in PJ Media:
We all know that travel bans are racist; Old Joe Biden told us so himself. He tweeted on February 1, 2020: “Trump further diminished the U.S. in the eyes of the world by expanding his travel ban. This new ‘African Ban,’ is designed to make it harder for black and brown people to immigrate to the United States. It’s a disgrace, and we cannot let him succeed.” Now that Biden’s handlers, possibly even including the wonk who actually composed that tweet, are in charge, all that systemic racism is being swept away, and for that we can all be grateful. Or at least we could be until Friday, when Biden’s handlers announced a plan to follow in Trump’s footsteps and ban travel from eight countries in Africa in order to fight what is being presented as a dangerous new variant of the coronavirus.
Politico reported Friday that the ban was announced “just hours after a new coronavirus variant was deemed a highly transmissible virus of concern,” and would go into effect Monday, banning travelers from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi from entering the United States.” Politico noted that Biden’s handlers made this move on advice from none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Left’s untarnished guru of Covid prevention.
And that makes it all right. We can learn from this that the problem with Trump’s travel bans was not that he imposed them, but why he imposed them. In February 2020, Biden lambasted Trump’s racism over the extension of the travel bans to Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania, as well as Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar. This was after Trump had previously imposed travel bans upon Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf explained at the time that “the countries hit by the new measures failed to meet US security and information-sharing standards.” The countries from which Trump banned travel could not or would not provide adequate information to American officials about the people who wanted to enter the country. Trump reasoned that in light of that, the risk of admitting anyone from those countries was too great. His travel bans were motivated by concern for the safety of the American people.
Biden and the Democrats, however, knew better. They knew that Trump’s expressed concern for safety was just a ploy, a fig leaf to cover his racism. They knew, or claimed to know, that Trump’s travel bans were actually motivated by “Islamophobia,” and derided it as a “Muslim Ban,” even though Tanzania, Myanmar, North Korea and Venezuela aren’t exactly Islamic Republics. Biden promised during his campaign: “On day one, I’ll end Trump’s unconstitutional Muslim ban. My administration will look like America with Muslim Americans serving at every level.” As soon as he entered the Oval Office, Biden followed through on this promise, ending Trump’s travel bans in a flurry of executive orders on January 20, 2021.
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