Donald Trump has signed a proclamation banning the nationals of 12 countries from entering the United States, saying the move was needed to protect against “foreign terrorists” and other security threats.
The directive is part of an immigration crackdown the US President launched this year at the start of his second term, which has also included the deportation to El Salvador of hundreds of Venezuelans suspected of being gang members and efforts to deny enrollments of some foreign students and deport others.
The countries affected by the latest travel ban are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
The entry of people from seven other countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela, will be partially restricted.
“We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm,” Trump said in a video posted on X. He said the list could be revised and new countries could be added.
The proclamation is effective on June 9, 2025, at 12.01am EDT (4.01am GMT). Visas issued before that date will not be revoked, the order said.
During his first term in office, Trump announced a ban on travellers from seven Muslim-majority nations, a policy that went through several iterations before it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
Former President Joe Biden, a Democrat who succeeded Trump, repealed that ban on nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen in 2021, calling it “a stain on our national conscience.”
"We cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen... That is why today I am signing a new executive order placing travel restrictions on countries including Yemen, Somalia, Haiti, Libya, and numerous others." –President Trump pic.twitter.com/ER7nGM4TO2
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 4, 2025
Trump said 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 travelers’ identities, inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories and high rates of visa overstays in the United States.
Trump claimed there were “millions and millions of these illegals who should not be in our country”.
“We will not let what happened in Europe happen to America,” he said, adding, “very simply, we cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter the United States”.
“We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm.”
He cited Sunday’s incident in Boulder, Colorado in which a man threw a petrol bomb into a crowd of pro-Israel demonstrators as an example of why the new restrictions are needed.
An Egyptian national, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, has been charged in the attack. Federal officials said Soliman had overstayed his tourist visa and had an expired work permit - although Egypt is not on the list of countries facing travel limits.
Somalia immediately pledged to work with the US to address security issues.
“Somalia values its longstanding relationship with the United States and stands ready to engage in dialogue to address the concerns raised,” Dahir Hassan Abdi, the Somali ambassador to the United States, said in a statement.
Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, a close ally of President Nicolas Maduro, responded on Wednesday evening by describing the US government as fascist and warning Venezuelans of being in the US
“The truth is being in the United States is a big risk for anybody, not just for Venezuelans ... They persecute our countrymen, our people for no reason.”
A spokesperson for the Taliban-led Afghan foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment on how it would handle the thousands of Afghans waiting in Islamabad who had been in the pipeline for US resettlement.
Calls early on Thursday to the spokesperson of Myanmar’s military government were not answered. The foreign ministry of Laos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump campaigned on a tough border strategy and previewed his plan in an October 2023 speech, pledging to restrict people from the Gaza Strip, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and “anywhere else that threatens our security”.
Trump issued an executive order on January 20 requiring intensified security vetting of any foreigners seeking admission to the US to detect national security threats. That order directed several cabinet members to submit a list of countries from which travel should be partly or fully suspended because their “vetting and screening information is so deficient.”
The latest travel restrictions were first reported by CBS News.
In March, Reuters reported that the Trump administration was considering travel restrictions on dozens of countries.
