On June 16, The New York Times disclosed that United States President Donald Trump is considering broadening his travel ban list to include as many as 36 additional countries, most of them African – including my country, Zimbabwe.Twelve days earlier, Trump had enacted a proclamation barring citizens from 12 nations from entering the US. Seven of them – Chad, Congo Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, Somalia, and Sudan – are African.
He also imposed partial travel restrictions, rather than a complete ban, on individuals from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. Citizens from these nations are barred from permanently relocating to the US or obtaining tourist or student visas.
As promised on the campaign trail, Trump is cracking down on immigration.
For the first time in my life, I now face the extraordinary prospect of being barred from travelling to the US – a nation that several of my family members and friends call home.
My cousin, Dr Anna Mhaka, for example, completed her medical studies and practised exclusively in the US. Spencer Matare, a former classmate, has lived in Indianapolis for more than two decades and is a US citizen.
Despite the Trump administration’s political grandstanding and vilification of migrants – both legal and undocumented – Anna …
