A leading human rights group has warned that Donald Trump’s latest travel ban could inflict disproportionate harm on LGBTQ+ individuals and other vulnerable groups from affected nations.
In a surprise move early on Thursday (5 May), the 78-year-old US president signed a proclamation banning nationals from 12 countries from entering the United States. The nations on the list include: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
According to the White House, the travel ban is designed to protect national security and guard against the threat of “foreign terrorists”. However, the move has come under fire from human rights advocates who argue that it unjustly targets already marginalised populations.
Robyn Barnard, an attorney for Human Rights First, described the ban as “truly punitive” in an interview with BBC World Service. Barnard, who identifies as an immigrant “several times over”, said the measure closely resembles a previous executive order Trump signed during his first presidential term in 2017, which temporarily barred citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
“There is no clear thread between each [country],” Barnard noted. “The only commonalities are that several have restrictive policies against women, girls, LGBTQ+ individuals and other at-risk communities.”
She added that the ban makes it virtually impossible for LGBTQ+ people and women fleeing persecution to seek safety or reunite with family members already living in the US. “It really feels like it’s about punishment and creating more chaos and dysfunction in our immigration system,” she said.
Activists also fear that the ban may signal a broader return to Trump’s previous hardline stance on immigration, which included controversial policies such as family separations and limits on asylum claims.
Just hours after signing the order, Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, writing simply: “We don’t want them.”
He referenced a recent attack in Boulder, Colorado, where 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman reportedly threw Molotov cocktails into a crowd, injuring at least 15 people. Despite Soliman being an Egyptian national — a country not listed in the travel ban — Trump cited the incident as proof of the dangers posed by “foreign nationals who are not properly vetted” and criticised those who “come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas.”
Critics argue that using such isolated incidents to justify sweeping immigration policies is both inflammatory and dangerous, especially when the targeted countries include those with known records of human rights abuses against LGBTQ+ people.
For many, the new ban isn’t just a border control measure — it’s a step backwards for vulnerable people in need of protection.
