President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Wednesday that bans nationals from a dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo from entering the United States, framing the travel ban as necess to fortify national security and building upon one of the most contentious policies of his first term.
“I directed the Secret of State, in coordination with the Attorney General, the Secret of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence, to identify countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a full or partial suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries,” Trump wrote in his proclamation.
Trump banned nationals from twelve countries from entering the United States: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
Several of the nations included on the list of banned countries, according to Trump’s proclamation, regularly declined to accept the return of their citizens or had visa overstay rates deemed by the administration “unacceptable” and indicative of “a blatant disregard for United States immigration laws.”
Others on the list, like Sudan, Yemen and Somalia, were included for inadequate screening and vetting measures.
An additional seven nations received partial travel restrictions, in which entrance into the country under several visa programs were suspended but an outright ban was not implemented: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
The travel restrictions are set to go into effect at 12:01 am eastern daylight time on June 9, 2025.
