On June 4, U.S. President Doanld Trump resurrected a travel ban policy he pioneered in his first term with a proclamation restricting fully the entry of citizens of a dozen countries to the United States, plus partial restrictions for seven other countries.
In the proclamation, Trump heralded his first travel ban as having “successfully prevented national security threats from reaching our borders and which the Supreme Court upheld.” The first Trump administration’s travel ban was challenged in court several times and went through three versions before arriving at the one ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court. The ban was often referred to as the “Muslim ban,” given the inordinate targeting of Muslim-majority countries and the president’s campaign rhetoric.
The new proclamation’s framing remains the same, casting foreign travelers as potential threats.
“The United States must ensure that admitted aliens and aliens otherwise already present in the United States do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists or other threats to our national security,” the proclamation stated.
Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen are subject to the total ban and Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela to partial bans. The proclamation justified the list of countries as being “deficient with regards to screening and vetting.” The proclamation added, “Many of these countries have also taken advantage of the United States in their exploitation of our visa system and their historic failure to accept back their removable nationals.”
My colleague Sebastian Strangio covered the order and its targeting of Asian countries – namely Afghanistan and Myanmar, which are subject to the total ban (although Afghan SIV holders are exempted).
But one country stood out to me here at Crossroads Asia: Turkmenistan.
Turkmenistan is a notoriously isolated country. Not many Turkmen manage to obtain visas to the United States in the first place.
According to the same 2023 Entry/Exit Overstay Report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the number of Turkmen business or tourist (B-1/B-2) visa holders expected to depart was 925. Of that number, 142 overstayed their visa – 136 who were suspected to remain in the country and six who departed, but after their visa had expired. This translates to a total overstay rate of 15.35 percent (14.7 percent if those who had departed the U.S. are left out). The number of nonimmigrant student and exchange visitor (F, M, J) visa holders was 207, with 45 overstays – four of which are believed to have departed the country – for a total overstay rate of 21.74 percent (19.81 percent, leaving out the late departures).
The proclamation referred to the higher figures in the 2023 Overstay Report, exacerbating the perception of the problem. In regard to Turkmenistan, the proclamation stated, “The entry into the United States of nationals of Turkmenistan as immigrants, and as nonimmigrants on B-1, B-2, B-1/B-2, F, M, and J visas is hereby suspended” and instructed consular officers, who process visas at U.S. embassies abroad, to “reduce the validity for any other nonimmigrant visa issued to nationals of Turkmenistan to the extent permitted by law.”
Unlike the sections of the proclamation regarding other countries, there are very few clues in the Turkmenistan section as to why – other than the high percentages – the country is included. For example, Laos, another Asian country subject to a partial ban, “has historically failed to accept back its removable nationals,” the proclamation argued. There is no such explanatory language in the Turkmenistan section.
But there are available explanations as to why Turkmenistan’s percentages are relatively high. For one, Turkmenistan is a repressive autocratic state. Those who travel abroad are subject to increased scrutiny upon return – motivating some to not return. And Turkmenistan forces its citizens to return, while also preventing some from traveling abroad.
As Merdan Amanov – a Turkmen researcher writing under a pseudonym – wrote for The Diplomat in 2022, “Turkmen embassies around the world still do not process passport renewals to Turkmen residing abroad. If citizens of Turkmenistan have expired passports, they need to travel home and renew their passports in Turkmenistan… Some have had to stay illegally in other countries, unable to travel home and also unable to renew their documents abroad.”
In addition, Ashgabat maintained a complete travel ban for two years after the COVID-19 pandemic. Amanov addressed this in a separate article, writing, “Citizens living abroad have always had to return to Turkmenistan to renew their passports, a visit that became virtually impossible when the borders closed.”
It’s possible that the overstays in 2023 were the lasting effects of the confluence of these policies. Once trapped abroad with an expired passport and an expired visa, the path home becomes markedly more difficult.
Data in the last decade’s worth of DHS Overstay Reports bears this interpretation out. While Turkmenistan has occasionally been at the higher end of overstay rates among travelers from Central Asia, it was only after the pandemic that Turkmen overstays skyrocketed, up to an extraordinary 55.07 percent in FY2022.
So why was Turkmenistan included in the partial travel ban? The reason is the overstay data, but interpreted without any context or compassion. And data without context is meaningless.
In a report released earlier this year on human development and inequality in Turkmenistan, the authors – from the Progres Foundation – argued that “Turkmenistan’s greatest yet most neglected asset is its people.” Ogulgerek Palwanova, one of the researchers behind the report, told The Diplomat in an April interview, “As one of the most closed and authoritarian states in the world, the lack of attention [on Turkmenistan] allows serious human development challenges, repression, and misinformation to persist unchecked. This silence enables the government to avoid accountability while its citizens suffer in isolation.”
Trump’s proclamation only serves to deepen that isolation.