The White House is reportedly considering expanding its travel ban to include several new countries — a move that President Trump will likely tout as evidence of his commitment to a stronger immigration system as he campaigns in 2020.
The Trump administration will roll out the expansion at the end of the month to coincide with the third anniversary of Trump’s original executive order, according to officials who spoke with the Associated Press. The officials did not say which countries the administration was considering or how many would be added to the ban, but the White House will likely add several of the countries that were removed from the original travel ban.
Right now, the temporary moratorium applies to Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, and North Korea. The ban was also supposed to apply to Iraq, Sudan, and Chad, but the Justice Department agreed to cut these countries to withstand legal scrutiny, a decision Trump disagreed with.
The expansion will be part of an effort to renew focus on Trump’s immigration policies as he vies for reelection. There’s a risk to this: The original travel ban was highly contentious, triggering hundreds of protests and a series of lawsuits that were eventually settled by the Supreme Court. Trump won that fight without losing in the court of public opinion, and he likely thinks he can do so again.
Polling on the travel restrictions varied throughout the litigation process. But after months of back-and-forth, a majority of voters said they supported the ban and the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold it, according to Politico. The ban was particularly popular among independent voters, and if Trump can motivate them to support this policy, they might just support him at the voting booths in 2020.
The problem is that the travel ban tended to earn more support when it wasn’t associated with Trump. Surveys that refrained from directly mentioning the president found that a majority of respondents favored the policy, while those that did tie the policy to the president were more likely to record a majority against it.
Trump plans to focus on immigration in 2020, just like he did in 2016. And this is one way to demonstrate his dedication to reforming a system he believes is broken, even if the Washington establishment dislikes him for it. This particular issue is a gamble, and one that might not even be worth it in the long-run, but if what motivated voters in 2016 motivates them again, Trump might just have the last word.
