Kelly McParland: The U.S. builds a border wall around itself with new travel rules

Prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, registering to vote in Alabama required passing a “literacy” test designed specifically to keep Blacks from casting ballots.

There were 68 questions ranging from the arcane to the obscure, requiring a near Delphic understanding of federal, state and constitutional practices and statutes. Which U.S. authority, for instance, is responsible for policing piracy? Of the original 13 states, which sent the most representatives to the first Congress? If two states decided to merge, which levels of approval would have to be obtained?

Though anyone could be required  to complete the test, it was overwhelmingly reserved for Blacks. Registration officials had wide powers of discretion, so whites who failed could be passed anyway while Blacks who passed could be failed on a range of inventive excuses. It worked marvellously, keeping Blacks from playing a meaningful role in politics for decades.

You can sense the same strategy in the latest update to U.S. border and customs regulations. New York harbour may still have a well-known statue claiming to welcome “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” but the presiding attitude in Washington is more like “We don’t want you, we don’t need you, we’d really prefer you just go away.”

Under the proposed new rules, visitors from 42 countries in a U.S. visa waiver program will be required to hand over five years’ worth of social media data, including telephone numbers used in the past five years; email addresses used in the past decade; and names, addresses, telephone numbers and dates of birth of their parents, spouses, siblings and children. Face, fingerprints, DNA and iris biometrics will be sought, along with any business email or phone numbers used over the past five to 10 years. The border agency is also introducing a “voluntary self-reported exit” plan enabling “aliens … who are departing the United States to voluntarily provide biographic data from their passports or other travel documents, facial images, and geolocation” to prove they’ve actually left.

The rules haven’t taken effect yet and are open to a 60-day comment period, but were developed to satisfy a presidential executive order issued last January, meaning anyone hoping for a reprieve will first have to convince Donald J. Trump to change his mind. The U.S. president is on a crusade to keep the country free of crooks, terrorists, drug dealers and the like, and appears to believe the best way of doing so is to block access to almost anyone who isn’t already inside.

That wouldn’t just include known bad people, or residents of what the president has referred to as “sh–hole countries,” but just about anyone a responsible authority decides shouldn’t be allowed in, for whatever reason the responsible authority settles on. In most cases for most people that would be one of the 50,000 or so agents assigned to protecting borders, airports or other ports of entry, who already have extensive leeway to refuse entry largely on their own say-so, much as Alabama electoral officials could largely decide who got to vote.

Canada isn’t part of the visa waiver program and thus appears to be excluded from the most extreme strictures, at least for now. Confusingly enough, the program was initially introduced as a means to make short-term travel to the U.S. easier for “many of America’s closest allies.” Members include essentially all of Europe and Scandinavia, plus Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, but few outside those ranks.

Chile is the only member south of the U.S. border with Mexico. Mexico itself doesn’t qualify, its border a mish-mash of fencing, concrete, steel and barbed wire, with cameras, lights and high-tech sensoring systems aiding regular patrols. Qatar, added last year, is the only member from the Middle East. There are none from Africa.

The rules come on top of an outright ban on travellers from 12 countries and restricted access on people from seven others. Kristi Noem, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, said this month that banned countries are likely to be increased to more than 30, though she couldn’t identify the new outcasts as “the president is continuing to evaluate countries.”

Barring the miraculous it’s easy to see such draconian measures having a chilling effect on travel to the U.S. from just about everywhere. The U.S. is co-hosting one of the world’s biggest sports events, the FIFA World Cup, this summer, with 48 teams playing 104 matches, and contests scheduled in 11 cities in eight states, including the final match in New Jersey in July. Just recently President Trump was centre-stage at a FIFA event in Washington, where he was awarded a “peace prize” newly created by the organization and described by the president as “truly one of the great honours of my life.”

It may be that the honour will soften his attitude toward outsiders, but as with so many Trump administration diktats, it’s the uncertainty that hurts. Tourists angling for a jolly week at Disney World will have to factor in the possibility a sudden unforeseen change in rules will torpedo months or years of preparations, with flights, reservations and hotel bookings in the balance. Convention planners will have to sort out whether it’s worth hoping thousands of delegates can somehow locate every email address used over the past decade, or whether it would just be easier to hold the gathering in Toronto or Madrid.

It took an historic piece of legislation to win ordinary voting protections for Black Americans. There’s no telling how long it will be before the rest of the world once again feels welcome in the United States.

National Post