A Bowling Green-based refugee resettlement agency is anticipating the impacts of a federal travel ban on the families and individuals it serves.
The International Center of Kentucky, based in Bowling Green, says the restrictions will create more uncertainty for individuals expecting to start a new life in the U.S.
The Trump administration has implemented a travel ban on 12 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Caribbean, and put partial restrictions on seven others.
The ban is part of tighter security measures to protect the U.S. from dangerous individuals, according to the Trump administration, which found the countries were "deficient with regards to screening and vetting and determined to pose a very high risk to the United States."
Albert Mbanfu, Executive Director of the International Center of Kentucky, said the move will put individuals and families in limbo.
"My problem and the issue is, we have refugees from Burma, Congo and other places who had their tickets ready to fly into the country," Mbanfu said. "So with this ban we don't know if that will affect those individuals. It's just more uncertainty."
The full ban applies to foreign nationals from: Afghanistan, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Myanmar, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also has restrictions on individuals from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
The ban will target the visa process and would impact applications that are already in progress in the now-banned countries. Individuals meeting specific criteria will be exempt from the ban, including children adopted by U.S. citizens, dual citizens, and some athletes that would be competing in the U.S.
In 2017, President Trump issued a travel ban that targeted seven largely Muslim countries which lasted for 90 days. That ban was met with lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union challenging its legality.
Mbanfu said it is unclear if refugees who have already received their visas will be affected by the travel ban and expects lawsuits challenging the ban to take place.
"We are a nation of immigrants and I think there's a better way of us managing how people come into the country and balancing it with security, rather than just outright making a blanket decision to shut off a country," Mbanfu said. "If you think you can secure your country by isolating it, then you are deceiving yourself because the world has become a global village."
