Trump targeting immigrants from countries hit most by climate shocks

A Guardian analysis reveals how most of 39 countries facing US entry restrictions are most vulnerable environmentally

‘Every day it’s more barriers’: how the US is shutting out climate refugees

Donald Trump ’s immigration crackdown is largely targeting people from the countries most vulnerable to displacement from climate-driven disasters, a Guardian analysis shows.

As the Trump administration pushes policies to boost planet-heating fossil fuels , millions of people are being forced to flee their homelands due to storms, floods and droughts worsened by the climate crisis .

Of the 39 countries from which the Trump administration has fully or partly restricted entry to the US , 22 are ranked within the most vulnerable quarter of nations in the world to climate impacts, according to a Guardian analysis of data from the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative, which assesses how prone jurisdictions are to the climate crisis.

“ Nearly all of the most vulnerable countries are on a ban or visa pause,” said Danielle Wood, an associate professor at Notre Dame. Immigrants from Chad and Niger, the two most climate-vulnerable countries in the world according to the index, are now fully barred from the US, as are people from Sudan, Somalia and Sierra Leone , also among the 10 countries most exposed to climate impacts.

Among the most vulnerable half of countries is Honduras , which has seen stronger rainstorms, droughts, floods and coastal erosion in recent years. When Hurricane Mitch crashed into the country, killing 7,000 people, one affected family surveyed the unsalvageable ruins of their home and realized they had a lifeline – to move to the US.

Evelyn, who did not want to share her full name, was a teenager when Mitch hit in 1998 and recalls how her relatives in New York City pleaded with her mother to bring her and her sister to the US.