In a sweeping move reminiscent of his first term, President Donald Trump has signed a new executive order imposing a wide-ranging travel ban on citizens from 19 countries, a decision that has already drawn sharp criticism from civil rights advocates and immigrant communities.
According to the proclamation released on Wednesday, nationals from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen will face full entry restrictions into the United States.
Additionally, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela will face partial travel restrictions under the same order.
President Trump stated that the decision was made based on “foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism goals.”
He said the move was necessary to protect the United States from foreign nationals who may pose security threats or overstay their visas.
“We don’t want them,” Trump declared in a social media video, referring to individuals who are “not properly vetted” or who enter the country temporarily and overstay. He added that the list of affected countries may be revised over time “as threats emerge around the world.”
The order follows through on a directive Trump signed on January 20, the day he resumed office, instructing his administration to produce a list of countries deemed high-risk by March 21.
The announcement comes amid Trump’s wider crackdown on immigration, which includes ending temporary protected status (TPS) for immigrants from conflict-ridden nations, restricting asylum claims at the southern border, and tightening rules for student visas, particularly for international students attending elite institutions like Harvard University.
Trump claimed the latest policy was in response to a recent violent incident in Colorado involving an Egyptian national, which he said “underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals.”
However, critics and rights groups say the policy is xenophobic and harmful to immigrant communities.
“This discriminatory policy, which limits legal immigration, not only flies in the face of what our country is supposed to stand for, it will be harmful to our economy and communities that rely on the contributions of people who come to America from this wide range of countries,” said Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington.
Civil liberties advocates also warn the policy could result in the separation of families and a chilling effect on legal immigration, especially from countries like Haiti, Cuba, and Venezuela, which have strong diasporic communities in the U.S.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which previously challenged Trump’s initial travel ban in 2017, slammed the renewed order.
“The Muslim ban’s bigotry should have been as clear to the supreme court as it is to the Muslims demonized by it,” CAIR had said after the court upheld the original policy.
“Apparently, everyone but the supreme court can see the decision for what it is: an expression of animosity.”
Trump first introduced a travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries shortly after taking office in 2017. Though it faced initial legal setbacks, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld a revised version, asserting it fell within the president’s national security powers.
In 2020, countries including Nigeria, Kyrgyzstan, Eritrea, Myanmar, Sudan, and Tanzania were added to the list, before the ban was rescinded in 2021 by President Joe Biden, who reversed it within hours of being sworn in.
