An Afghan man passes in front of an air travel agency in Kabul, Afghanistan.Ebrahim Noroozi/AP
On Wednesday, the Trump administration issued a new travel ban on foreigners, primarily targeting people from countries in Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. Under the guise of protecting the United States against “foreign terrorists” and national security threats, this executive order amounts to an even more sweeping bar than the infamous travel ban on Muslim-majority nations that President Donald Trump implemented during his first term.
“There is no evidence this is making us safer.”
The reinstated travel ban represents the administration’s latest attack on immigrants. Slated to go into effect Monday, it prohibits most travel and lawful immigration from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. It also limits entry for travelers from seven other nations: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
The rationale for the restrictions, according to the presidential proclamation, is based on “foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism” concerns. The executive order states that the countries hit with the restrictions lack proper vetting and screening processes for issuing passports and other civil documents and have high visa overstay rates. It also mentions the nations’ willingness (or lack thereof) to take back deportees from the United States as a factor.
There are a number of exemptions to the ban: travelers who already have valid visas, green card holders, Afghan nationals eligible for a special visa for assisting the US government, and immediate relatives of American citizens. It also carves out exceptions for “ethnic and religious minorities facing persecution in Iran,” dual citizens traveling with a passport from a country not listed in the proclamation, and athletes coming for the World Cup or other major sports events.
The 19 countries targeted by the travel ban represent more than 475 million people, the American Immigration Council noted. “The travel bans of the Trump administration’s first term never demonstrated any meaningful value as a national security tool,” Jeremy Robbins, executive director of the organization, said in a statement. “Sweeping national origin bans declare many innocent people to be a threat based on factors they cannot control in their home countries. There is no evidence this is making us safer.”
Other immigration policy experts and observers have raised questions about the Trump administration’s justification for the severe travel restrictions. Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute pointed out that there’s little evidence to support claims that immigrants from the countries covered by the ban commit acts of terrorism at any significant rate.
Upon announcing the executive order, Trump brought up the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado, against a group of demonstrators calling for Israeli hostages in Gaza to be released. The alleged perpetrator is an Egyptian national who authorities say entered the United States on a tourist visa in 2022 and later applied for asylum; this, Trump said, “has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals.” Egypt, however, isn’t included in the list of countries targeted by the executive order. When asked about it, Trump said Egypt “has been a country that we deal with very closely, they have things under control.”
This iteration of the travel ban mirrors the authority Trump invoked in his first term to bar travelers from several Muslim-majority countries, giving rise to nationwide protests and lengthy legal battles. In 2018, the Supreme Court upheld a third version of Trump’s embattled travel ban that also affected Venezuela and North Korea.
Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition and one of the leaders in the resistance to the first Trump travel ban, said in a statement: “With the return of a supercharged Muslim and African Ban and the racist exclusion of certain people from the ability to seek safety and refuge, Donald Trump and his enablers are attacking the very concept of America itself.”