U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a proclamation banning citizens from 12 countries from entering the United States, claiming the measure is necessary to protect against “foreign terrorists” and other security threats.
The countries facing complete travel bans are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Additionally, seven other nations – Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela – will face partial entry restrictions.
The travel restrictions, first reported by CBS News, will take effect on June 9, 2025, at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (5:01 WAT). According to the order, visas issued before that date will not be cancelled.
“We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm,” Trump said in a video posted on X (formerly Twitter). He indicated that the list could be revised and new countries could be added in future.
This marks a return to similar policies from Trump’s first presidency, when he announced restrictions on travellers from seven majority-Muslim nations in 2017. That controversial policy went through several versions before being upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
Former President Joe Biden, a Democrat who succeeded Trump, repealed those restrictions in 2021, calling them “a stain on our national conscience.”
Trump stated that the countries subject to the most severe restrictions were determined to harbour a “large-scale presence of terrorists,” fail to cooperate on visa security, and have an inability to verify travellers’ identities. He also cited inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories and high rates of visa overstays in the United States as reasons for the ban.
BusinessDay
