Many countries have had travel restrictions. Referring to any country (or its citizens) as pariah is terrible and may reflect more on the author than on what the Europeans believe about the Americans. Worse, she is an American and a CNN contributor.
From the WSJ:
The word "pariah" originally comes from "Paraiyar," the name of a low caste in southern India. Scholars of Indian languages trace "Paraiyar" back to the Tamil word for drum, "parai." Traditionally, members of the caste had a ritual duty to beat the drums at festivals, since the leather used for the drums was considered unclean and thus unfit for higher-caste Hindus to touch.
Many in the Paraiyar caste also ended up working as servants for British colonists, and through this contact, the name of the caste became Anglicized as "paria" or "pariah." Its meaning expanded imprecisely to cover all the lower castes, as well as "outcastes" or "untouchables."