Toronto resident cancels planned trip to U.S. due to travel ban: 'I feel so bad'
Hla Wynn was looking forward to his annual trip to New York this summer, eager to spend time with family and help his brother recover from surgery. But the retired college professor said his long-standing plans are on hold until further notice now that U.S. President Donald Trump has announced a travel ban on residents of more than a dozen countries, including his birthplace of Myanmar.
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'We've been going back and forth, some years they come and visit us, sometimes we go and visit them, to go for a trip during the summertime, spend about a week or two with them,' the 73-year-old said of his summer travels. '… but because of this new development, I'm not comfortable visiting them.'
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Trump announced Wednesday that citizens of 12 countries — Myanmar, Afghanistan, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen — would be banned from visiting the United States.
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Some of the 12 countries on the banned list were targeted by a similar measure Trump enacted in his first term.
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Wynn, who now lives in Toronto, has maintained close ties in his home country and worries about the broader impact of Trump's ban, which is set to take effect on Monday.
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He said he has been helping university students in Myanmar online after they lost access to education following a military coup in 2021, and he now fears the ban will make it difficult for those wanting to continue their studies.
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'Everything was closed down or even if they are open, they are under military government, which is a very poor education system,' he said.
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'I was so sad for these people because lots of people are trying to get into (the) U.S. and Canada … and now there are lots of students stuck to get a visa.'
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The head of an association representing the Myanmar community in Ontario said the new travel ban is 'cruel' to the people of his country.
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Napas Thein, president of the Burma Canadian Association of Ontario, said the people of Myanmar are already facing difficulties in their own country thanks to the coup and a new law mandating military service, and the ban will make it harder to move to a safer place.
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'This has really put a strain on people that I know in Canada,' he said.
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'I know a student, supposed to be incoming PhD student, who is supposed to go to a university in the United States, whose trajectory there may be completely halted because he's a Myanmar national.'
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