Remember This? I Do.

Statement from Vice President Joe Biden on Donald Trump’s Expanded Travel Ban | by Joe Biden | Medium

Yesterday, Donald Trump further diminished the United States in the eyes of the world by expanding his travel ban, placing new restrictions on the residents of six more nations that limit who is allowed to come to the United States.

Three years ago, he took aim at Muslim-majority nations. This time, he targeted primarily African nations — including Nigeria, the largest economy and the most populous nation on the continent, and Sudan, a country striving to transition to civilian rule after decades of dictatorship. The “Muslim Ban,” this new “African Ban,” Trump’s atrocious asylum and refugee policies — they are all designed to make it harder for black and brown people to immigrate to the United States. It’s that simple. They are racist. They are xenophobic.

And there is no evidence that they do anything to make us safer. If anything, they endanger the best tools we have to fight terrorism — our globe-spanning network of alliances and partnerships. They erode our moral standing in the world and make it less likely that other nations will work with us to take on terrorist threats before they can reach our shores.

Immigrants from each of these countries and their broader diaspora communities here in the United States enrich the larger fabric of American life as our friends and neighbors and make vital contributions to our economy. They make our nation stronger. The United States has a meaningful history of offering safety and opportunity to peoples of every nation — no matter where they come from, no matter if they are rich or poor, no matter the faith they follow.

Donald Trump is doing everything in his power to destroy that legacy. It’s a disgrace, and we cannot let him succeed.

Today:

President Joe Biden will limit air travel from eight African nations beginning Monday, in an effort to keep the mutant Omicron variant of COVID-19 from entering the United States, senior administration officials revealed.

Following advice from Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the administration will restrict flights from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Malawi. Details on the exact policy remained sparse. However, officials proffered assurances that U.S. citizens and permanent residents will be able to return home, so long as they test negative for the novel coronavirus before arriving.

I expect all politicians to be hypocrites. That doesn’t bother me so much anymore. But when you explicitly campaign on your opponent’s actions on an issue, and then once in office you take the exact same actions, that I can’t put up with. That’s more than hypocrisy. That’s either blatant lying or a frank admission that you didn’t understand the job until you got it. And if you didn’t understand, you shouldn’t have been criticizing.