Joe Biden to Restrict Travel from India Despite Describing Travel Bans as ‘Xenophobic’

U.S. President Joe Biden stops to briefly speak with reporters on his way to Marine One on
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Charlie Spiering

President Joe Biden plans to restrict travel from India on May 4 over the country’s coronavirus surge, despite describing such bans as “xenophobic” during the 2020 presidential campaign.

The president plans to act on advice from federal health officials, Reuters reported Friday, citing a White House official.

The official said the travel ban from India would be announced Friday “in light of extraordinarily high COVID-19 caseloads and multiple variants circulating in India.”

The ban prevents foreign nationals from entering the United States through India if they have been in the country within the last 14 days.

India has experienced a dramatic surge of coronavirus cases, with an average of 386,000 cases on Friday and 3,500 deaths.

During the 2020 campaign, Biden criticized President Donald Trump as xenophobic for enacting his own travel bans on China, Iran, and Europe to help stop coronavirus from spreading into the United States.

“We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering,” he wrote after Trump announced a travel ban on China.

He also accused Trump of failing to help stop the spread of the virus in other countries.

“Banning all travel from Europe — or any other part of the world — will not stop it,” Biden wrote on Twitter in March 2020. “This disease could impact every nation and any person on the planet — and we need a plan to combat it.”

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