A sweeping new travel ban on citizens from a dozen nations was announced by the White House on Wednesday, reviving a defining effort from the first Trump administration to crack down on entries from specific countries.
Trump said in a video posted Wednesday that new countries could be added to the travel ban as “threats emerge around the world.”
The 12 countries targeted – plus seven more, which face partial restrictions – are mostly nations with frosty, adversarial or outwardly antagonistic relations with Washington. Many are either failed states or in the throes of repressive rule, and some are governed by groups that took control after years of US involvement in their affairs.
For all but four of the 19 countries hit with restrictions, the administration pointed to high rates of their nationals overstaying their visas after entering the US.
Visa overstays have received renewed scrutiny since the Boulder, Colorado, attack last weekend against a group campaigning in solidarity with the Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. The suspect in that attack was originally from Egypt, which was not on Wednesday’s travel ban list. He obtained a two-year work authorization that expired in March, a Homeland Security (DHS) official said.
Seven countries were included because the administration deemed they pose a “high level of risk” to the US: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
The travel ban does not target existing visa or green card holders, and it also features carve-outs for some visa categories and for people whose entry serves US interests.
Its impact will vary greatly from country to country; some nations only receive a few hundred nonimmigrant visas per year, while others have seen hundreds of thousands of people enter the US in the past decade.
Seven African countries
Travel to the US has been fully restricted for citizens from Chad, Sudan, Libya, Eritrea, the Republic of Congo, Somalia and Equatorial Guinea. Meanwhile, a partial restriction has been imposed on nationals from Burundi, Togo and Sierra Leone.
The US does not issue a high number of visas to most of those countries – only a few hundred or a few thousand people per year were granted immigrant and nonimmigrant visas in 2023, according to State Department data.
The White House said Somalia had been identified as a “terrorist safe haven,” led by a government that lacks “command and control of its territory.” This year, the US carried out airstrikes in Somalia against ISIS and affiliated targets, in a joint counterterrorism effort with the nation.
Relations with Sudan have soured; last month, the Trump administration said it would impose sanctions on the military-led Sudanese government after finding that it used chemical weapons last year during its ongoing war with a rival military faction. The US has been unable to broker a ceasefire to end the conflict that has raged on for two years, leaving tens of thousands dead.
The White House has also had a frosty relationship with Chad, which demanded the removal of American troops from its territory last year, as well as with Eritrea, whose military the Biden administration accused in 2023 of committing war crimes during a conflict in northern Ethiopia.
Similar reprimands have been made by the US State Department against state and non-state actors in Libya, which it accused of committing crimes against humanity.
Chad had one of the highest rates of visa overstays of any country included in the ban; around half of the people admitted to the US from the central African nation overstayed their visa in the 2023 financial year, according to the DHS, though the numbers of Chadians granted such visas was relatively small. The White House said Wednesday that Chad’s overstay rate is “unacceptable and indicates a blatant disregard for U.S. immigration laws.”
The African Union Commission said in a Thursday statement it was “concerned” about the impact of bans “on people-to-people ties, educational exchange, commercial engagement, and the broader diplomatic relations that have been carefully nurtured over decades.”
“While recognising the sovereign right of all nations to protect their borders and ensure the security of their citizens, the African Union Commission respectfully appeals to the United States to exercise this right in a manner that is balanced, evidence-based, and reflective of the long-standing partnership between the United States and Africa,” its statement read.
Afghanistan, Iran and Yemen
The ban targeted three Middle Eastern adversaries with which the US has limited or no diplomatic ties.
The US does not formally recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s official government. The militant group reclaimed power in 2021 amid a chaotic and deadly withdrawal of US forces under the Biden administration. Afghans who helped the US government during Washington’s two-decade involvement in the country are exempt from the ban; they fall under a Special Immigrant Visa program that has allocated more than 50,000 visas since 2009.
The Trump administration targeted Yemen’s Houthi rebels with airstrikes for several weeks earlier this year, in response to the group attacking ships and disrupting trade routes in the Red Sea. The Houthis control much of western Yemen, including the capital Sanaa.
Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela
Haiti has been in the grips of violent unrest for years. Gangs control at least 85% of its capital, Port-au-Prince, and have launched attacks in the country’s central region in recent years. The violence has left more than one million Haitians internally displaced.
Two other Latin American nations – Cuba and Venezuela – also face restrictions, though Trump stopped short of implementing a full ban. The move comes a week after the Supreme Court allowed Trump’s administration to suspend a Biden-era humanitarian parole program that let half a million people from the two countries, plus Nicaragua, temporarily live and work in the US each year.
Trump in March revoked temporary humanitarian parole for about 300,000 Cubans, amid a record number of arrivals of migrants from the Caribbean island.
Of all the countries targeted, the new restrictions may impact Venezuelans the most. More than 55,000 people from Venezuela received nonimmigrant visas to enter the US in 2023, and nearly 800,000 Venezuelans in total were granted such visas over the preceding decade, according to the State Department.
Myanmar and Laos
The White House said both Laos and Myanmar, also known as Burma, have failed to co-operate with the US over the return of their nationals.
Myanmar’s ruling military junta has spent the past four years waging a brutal civil war across the Southeast Asian country, sending columns of troops on bloody rampages, torching and bombing villages, massacring residents, jailing opponents and forcing young men and women to join the army.
The junta is headed by a widely reviled army chief who overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and installed himself as leader, and the nation was thrown into further turmoil by a devastating earthquake in March.
The US and Laos meanwhile have a complicated history, hampered by the US bombing of the country during its war in Vietnam. But relations have improved dramatically this century, and the US-Laos partnership is one of the most stable and productive of all 19 countries targeted by Wednesday’s ban.
Egypt not included
Egypt was spared inclusion in the travel ban, even though the restrictions were expedited after an Egyptian national was charged with attempted murder after the Molotov cocktail attack in Boulder, Colorado.
Egypt has long been a key US partner in the Middle East. Relations between Cairo and Washington date back to 1922, when Egypt gained independence from the United Kingdom, and have continued ever since.
According to the US embassy in Egypt, some 450 Egyptians travel to the United States annually on professional and academic exchange programs.
The Arab nation has also historically been the second biggest recipient of US military aid, following Israel. Since 1978, the US has contributed more than $50 billion in military assistance to Egypt, according to the American embassy, though some of this aid has been occasionally withheld on account of the country’s human rights record.
“Egypt is a valued U.S. partner in counterterrorism, anti-trafficking, and regional security operations, which advance both U.S. and Egyptian security,” the US embassy said in 2023.