Senior Adviser to President Donald Trump Stephen Miller revealed Trump’s immigration plans for a second term, should the president win re-election.
According to an NBC News article, Miller outlined four main priorities for the administration’s immigration plan, including “raising and enhancing the standard for entry” to the United States.
In a phone call to NBC News, Miller said the administration would be “building on and expanding the framework that we’ve created with the travel ban, in terms of raising the standard for screening and vetting for admission to the United States.”
Trump’s immigration policies have faced intense scrutiny and legal challenges over the years, especially for his original travel ban, which prevented travelers from several Muslim-majority countries from coming to the U.S. at all.
The original ban underwent several iterations and faced numerous court challenges until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in a 5 to 4 decision, that it could be upheld despite the fact that several lower courts found the travel ban to be unconstitutional.
At the time, the U.S. Travel Association and the American Society of Travel Advisors weighed in noting that a travel ban in any form isn’t very welcoming to visitors from abroad.
“The economic stakes around strong and healthy international travel are too high—and speak too squarely to the president’s priorities of growing exports, jobs and the GDP—for the welcome message not to become a featured part of the administration’s calculus,” wrote United States Travel Association executive vice president Jonathan Grella.
ASTA said: “We align with the sentiment expressed by the U.S. Travel Association and other industry leaders that an overt message welcoming legitimate international travelers to the United States should accompany any security steps aimed at terrorists and those who overstay their visas.”
In 2017, a study from ForwardKeys found that the travel ban did, in fact, have a negative impact on travelers coming to the U.S. showing a decline in visitation of 1.4 percent, often attributed to the “Trump Slump.”
ForwardKeys wasn’t the only organization that noticed this decline. The Department of Commerce found that during the first three months of Trump’s presidency, nearly 700,000 fewer tourists visited the country than during the same time period the previous year.
In addition to a decrease in visitors to the U.S., the original travel ban also tarnished the U.S. as a tourism brand.
“I have heard from many European friends who say they specifically have no interest in visiting the U.S. right now because of the ban and Trump,” Adam Groffman, a Berlin-based travel blogger told TravelPulse at the time.
It is hard to see how a new travel ban would be viewed positively on a global scale or encourage travelers to visit the U.S., which has been hard hit by a lack of tourism as the coronavirus pandemic has decimated visitation numbers.
Research firm GlobalData released a study that found that a subsequent four years of President Donald Trump could hinder U.S. tourism growth.
“While causation cannot be proved, there is a correlation between President Trump’s first term and a slowdown in international visitation, which should increase apprehension in the U.S. tourism sector in the current election regarding how swiftly recovery will be realized during and post-pandemic,” said Ralph Hollister, travel and tourism analyst at GlobalData.
The company cited the U.S.’s negative views on immigration as one reason as well as the country’s ongoing trade war with China.
Still, the biggest hurdle facing U.S. tourism is the pandemic, which is now expected to result in a year-over-year decrease of 75 percent in 2020.