On Wednesday, President Donald Trump issued a presidential proclamation re-instituting the travel ban from his first presidential administration, expanded to include more countries. Trump said the attack last weekend at a march supporting Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, “underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas,” concluding “We don’t want them.” 

The proclamation fully restricts and limits the entry of nationals from 12 countries:  Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen, and partially restricts and limits the entry of nationals from an additional seven countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela. Under the restrictions, residents of the countries listed under the partial ban will be unable to apply for six of the major visa categories, including business, tourism and visas for students.

The travel ban would impact over 400 million people, including the hundreds of thousands of refugees who will now be denied asylum. American imperialism bears responsibility for the devastation of the countries affected by the travel ban.

At the start of his meeting Thursday with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office, Trump was asked why the list of banned countries does not include Egypt. Egypt is the country of origin of the suspect in the attack in Boulder Colorado, which Trump cited in justifying this travel ban. Trump replied that Egypt “has things under control,” adding that the ban applies only to countries that “don’t have things under control.” By “have things under control” Trump means that Egypt’s authoritarian government maintains political surveillance of its population and is subservient to the interests of American imperialism.

The statement from Trump that his administration is excluding immigration from countries that “don’t have things under control” echoes the statement made before the travel ban placed during his first administration: “Why do we want all these people from Africa here? Why do we want all these people from shithole countries?” 

A significant difference between Trump’s first administration and the current one, is that Trump’s openly racist statements produced declarations of shock in the media and denunciations from Democratic party politicians. This most recent announcement of a travel ban produced a fraction of the posturing from the media and political establishment. At the time, the problem for the ruling class and Democratic party was that Trump was saying openly that which the members of the oligarchy the state apparatus think and say in private.

In the first Trump presidency, the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the ban and upholding the president’s power to seal the country’s borders. Trump, articulating the policies of American imperialism in blunt language, dispensed with the longstanding art of American imperialist politics: hiding the criminal activities of the US imperialism with the verbiage of humanitarianism and democratic rights.

Legal scholars have warned that this current iteration of the Trump travel ban is likely to be upheld if challenged in the far-right dominated Supreme Court, with University of Michigan Law School professor Barbara McQuade saying in a BBC Newshour interview, “This time I think there has been more thought given into this... this time we see a mix of countries, not just Muslim-majority countries... It seems to me very likely that it will ultimately be upheld by the Supreme Court.” 

The Supreme Court ruled in the five-to-four decision on the 2017 travel ban, that the president and the military have the power to take drastic measures in a “national emergency” or “during a time of crisis,” including “if the United States were on the brink of war.” In the current administration, the “state of exception,” the pseudo-legal framework under which the crimes of the Nazis were carried out, is the operating principle.

The American “state of exception” found early expression in this Supreme Court ruling, and major rulings on the basis of “national security” arguments following the launching of the War on Terror in 2001.

The World Socialist Web Site wrote in response to the 2018 Supreme Court ruling:

There can now be little question that the country’s highest court will rubber-stamp whatever authoritarian measures Trump plans on enacting, including the abolition of due process for immigrants and the erection of concentration camps.

The travel ban proclamation and the earlier executive orders targeting immigrants are the spearhead of a dictatorship and intend to whip up anti-immigrant sentiment. The crackdown revives the legacy of the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and the era of Chinese exclusion. Chinese exclusion laws were upheld by the Supreme Court with arguments that Trump invokes today.

There is no viable fight against the attack on immigrants and the drive toward dictatorship without a complete break with the Democratic and Republican parties. The Democratic Party is an active collaborator with the fascistic Republican party; no confidence can be placed in the Democrats to defend immigrants. The mass mobilization of the working class is the only way the attack on immigrants and democratic rights can be opposed.

Opposition to the fascist policies against immigrants must be organized in defiance of the Democrats who have openly collaborated with Trump in his anti-immigrant campaign. The Democratic Party has not called for any protests against these measures because they are in fundamental agreement with Trump’s policies. Furthermore, the Democrats recognize that the situation in this country is explosive, and fear setting into motion a movement that they cannot control.

The SEP calls for workers to establish workplace and neighborhood committees, independent of the trade unions and the Democratic Party, to popularize these demands and mobilize their communities, schools and workplaces in defense of the rights of immigrants and all working people. This struggle must be guided by the understanding that the defense of basic rights is inseparable from a political struggle against the capitalist system—the source of war, inequality and repression—and the fight for socialism.