Trump Signs New Travel Ban on a Dozen Countries

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an order banning travel from a dozen nations and partially restricting travel from seven more.

The proclamation would bar the entry of foreign nationals from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Trump also placed partial travel restrictions on Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

The order, which takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, includes exceptions for visa holders, lawful permanent residents and “individuals whose entry serves U.S. national interests,” according to a fact sheet released by the White House. Diplomats and athletes traveling for international competition would also be eligible for exemptions.

“It is the President’s sacred duty to take action to ensure that those seeking to enter our country will not harm the American people,” the White House said in a statement.

Trump also issued a flurry of other executive orders Wednesday night, including one to restrict the entry of foreign students attending Harvard University and another launching an investigation into “any activity” taken by White House aides to “purposefully shield the public” about the state of former President Joe Biden’s health and Biden’s use of a mechanical signature, known as an autopen.

In a video announcing his travel ban, Trump invoked foreign terrorism as one of the key reasons for its necessity, as the ban comes on the heels of a grisly attack on a protest in Colorado calling for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, which injured 12 people. Trump said it “underscored the extreme dangers posed by foreign nationals who are not properly vetted.”

During his first term, Trump restricted travel into the United States for foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries — a policy he invoked following Wednesday’s announcement.

“We will restore the travel ban, some people call it the ‘Trump travel ban,’ and keep the radical Islamic terrorists out of our country,” Trump said.

The 2017 order faced a number of court challenges before Biden repealed it in 2021, shortly after taking office.

Trump promised on the campaign trail in 2024 to bring back his travel ban “bigger than before and much stronger than before.” On his first day in office this January, he called for Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other members of his cabinet to put together a list of countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”

The list is a result of that Jan. 20 order, and includes a reasoning for each country on the list. While the White House emphasized the “danger” posed by terrorists and criminals entering the country, many of the nations were included because of their relatively high rates of visa “overstays,” as measured by a Department of Homeland Security report from 2023. National security was not cited as a reason for including Burma, Chad, the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Burundi, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo and Turkmenistan.

The White House added that it hoped to use the travel bans to “encourage cooperation with the subject countries in recognition of each country’s unique circumstances” — and that it reserved the right to remove individual nations from the list if they were willing to meet the administration’s demands.

“We cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen…” Trump posted on Truth Social shortly after issuing the order.
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Brett Bachman is a senior editor for breaking news at NOTUS.