Multi-country travel ban

Trump issues new multi-country travel ban

The president’s executive order bars people from 12 countries, while partially issuing restrictions against nationals from seven others.

By Myah Ward

President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued a sweeping new travel ban for people from 19 countries, citing national security risks.

The ban fully restricts people from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States. The president is also partially restricting and limiting U.S. entry for nationals of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

The administration’s travel ban has been in the works for months, following through on a Day One executive order that directed agencies to identify countries where vetting visitors and visa applicants is considered infeasible and poses a threat to national security. The extensive planning speaks to the White House’s efforts to pass legal muster: Trump’s 2017 travel ban targeting majority-Muslim countries suffered a series of courtroom defeats before a slimmed down version eventually took effect.

“We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm, and nothing will stop us from keeping America safe,” Trump said in a video posted by the White House on Wednesday.

The ban exempts existing visa holders, lawful permanent residents, specific visa categories and individuals the government determines serve U.S. national interests. Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio performed a security review of “high-risk regions” and made recommendations for which countries should be slapped with new restrictions. The administration looked at factors such as terrorist activity, visa security cooperation, a country’s ability to verify travelers’ identities, record keeping of nationals’ criminal histories, as well as the rate of illegal visa overstays, the president added.

The White House considered including a much larger list of countries, according to a U.S. official familiar with the planning and granted anonymity to describe it. Trump said Wednesday that the list could be altered if countries improve conditions and meet U.S. vetting standards, and that others could be added if they pose a risk.

Trump’s action comes just days after a man in Boulder, Colorado, threw Molotov cocktails and used a “makeshift flamethrower” on pro-Israel protesters, heightening concerns over terrorism. Mohamed Soliman, an Egyptian national, entered the U.S. in 2022 with a non-immigrant visa, which expired in 2023, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

He also applied for asylum in 2022, according to DHS. He was charged with federal and state hate crimes, as the White House highlights the case as an example of how unchecked immigration poses a threat to national security.

The Trump administration moved quickly to try to deport Soliman’s family — his wife and five children — but a federal judge in California on Wednesday temporarily blocked the efforts. The family was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on Tuesday.

Trump has long framed immigration as a national security issue, leaning into this argument even more so in his second term as he looks to rapidly remove undocumented immigrants from the country and declares immigration an “invasion.” From the White House to Justice Department lawyers in court, the Trump administration has argued that the president has the power to unilaterally determine who poses a significant risk to the United States given his inherent authority over national security.

“The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed for our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas. We don’t want them,” Trump said in a video released by the White House announcing his ban. “In the 21st century, we’ve seen one terror attack after another carried out by foreign visa overstayers from dangerous places all over the world.”

The White House’s planning for Trump’s latest travel ban marks a departure from 2017, when the president’s haphazard rollout of restrictions on nationals from some majority-Muslim countries spurred numerous legal challenges and widespread chaos at U.S. airports.

Trump was forced to alter the travel ban twice before the Supreme Court ultimately greenlit a version of the policy in 2018. The court, in a 5-4 decision, affirmed the president’s powers over matters of national security, delivering a major victory to an administration looking to restrict immigration into the country.

That version, which former President Joe Biden terminated when he took office in 2021, implemented a range of travel restrictions against eight countries — Syria, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, North Korea, Chad and Venezuela. Chad was later removed from the list.

“In my first term, my powerful travel restrictions were one of our most successful policies, and they were a key part of preventing major foreign terror attacks on American soil,” Trump said.