Trump orders travel ban to 12 countries

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President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Wednesday that bans nationals from a dozen countries, including Afghanistan, Haiti and the Republic of Congo, from entering the United States, framing the travel ban as necessary to fortify national security and building upon one of the most contentious policies of his first term.

"I directed the Secretary of State, in coordination with the Attorney General, the Secretary 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 12 countries from entering the United States: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Several of the countries on the list, according to Trump's proclamation, regularly declined to accept the return of their citizens or had visa overstay rates the administration deemed "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, the administration said.

An additional seven countries came under partial travel restrictions, in which entrance into the country under several visa programs was suspended but an outright ban was not implemented. Those countries are Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

The travel restrictions are set to go into effect at 12:01 a.m. ET Monday.

The proclamation includes exemptions for any lawful permanent resident of the United States, recipients of Afghan Special Immigrant Visas, diplomatic visas, immediate family member immigrant visas and those "for ethnic and religious minorities in Iran." It also included exceptions for adoptions, dual nationals traveling on a passport from an unrestricted country and any athlete or member of an athletic team traveling to the country for the World Cup or the Olympics.

In a video the White House shared Wednesday night, Trump called the travel restrictions one of the “most successful policies” of his first term. He began the message by pointing to recent violence in Boulder, Colorado, in which a man injured at least 12 protesters in what city officials called an antisemitic attack to justify the need for a renewed travel ban.

A recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas. We don’t want them,” Trump said.

The suspect in that attack, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, is from Egypt and entered the country on an tourist visa before applying for asylum. His tourist visa expired as his asylum case was pending. Egypt is not on the list of countries with travel bans announced Wednesday.

Countries across the world were in shock Thursday after President Donald Trump announced a travel ban on nationals from a dozen countries and the cancellation of visa programs for seven more. For many, the move seemed like a return to 2017 and one of the most controversial policies of Trump’s first term.

Trump on Wednesday cited national security and terrorism concerns as motivating factors behind the ban on nationals largely from Africa and Asia, triggering reactions from representatives of those countries that ranged from weary diplomacy to downright anger.

“The truth is being in the United States is a big risk for anybody, not just for Venezuelans,” said Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello during a weekly show on state television.

With the Trump administration canceling a special visa program with Venezuela among other countries on Wednesday, Cabello described the U.S. government as “fascist,” adding that “they persecute our countrymen, our people for no reason.”

Many on the list are majority-Muslim countries, and several began observing the Hajj pilgrimage holiday late Wednesday, making an immediate response less likely. Officials at U.S. embassies in Libya, Chad, Eritrea, Sudan and Turkmenistan were not available for comment.

Still, Shawn VanDiver, president of the Afghan refugee advocacy group #AfghanEvac, referred to the ban as “political theater” and “a second Muslim Ban, dressed up in bureaucracy.”

Trump began a video address Wednesday by citing the recent violence in Boulder, Colorado, where an Egyptian man seeking asylum with an expired tourist visa injured at least 12 demonstrators in what city officials called an antisemitic attack, as justification for the renewed travel ban.

Egypt is not on the list of banned countries, but its absence speaks to the importance of Egyptian influence both on American Middle East policy and in the region at large, said Ahmed Aboudouh, an associate fellow at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

Trump's order largely affects “conflict-prone [nations], or ones which have security issues at this time, or don’t have the diplomatic or security heft to respond very aggressively to this U.S. ban,” Aboudouh said. “We’re not seeing the U.S. going after its strategic partners in either the Middle East or Africa.”

The White House's decision prompted a rebuke from the African Union Commission, which in a statement Thursday urged the U.S. to exercise its right to protect its borders “in a manner that is balanced, evidence-based, and reflective of the long-standing partnership between the United States and Africa.”

International aid groups have condemned the new ban, with Amnesty International on Thursday calling it “discriminatory, racist, and downright cruel” in a post on X.

Somalia, which had its American assistance slashed and U.S. military aid in training local forces to fight terrorist groups pulled, struck a similarly conciliatory tone.

“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 U.S., said in a statement Wednesday.

The administration pointed to terrorism as a reason for banning travel from Somalia.

“The United States Government has identified Somalia as a terrorist safe haven. Terrorists use regions of Somalia as safe havens from which they plan, facilitate, and conduct their operations,” according to a statement released by the White House. “The Government of Somalia struggles to provide governance needed to limit terrorists’ freedom of movement.”

Alex Nowrasteh, the vice president for economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute, a nonpartisan and independent public policy research organization, said terrorist attacks by nationals from the 12 countries facing outright bans are rare.

“A single terrorist from those countries murdered one person in an attack on U.S. soil: Emanuel Kidega Samson from Sudan, who committed an attack motivated by anti-white animus in 2017. The annual chance of being murdered by a terrorist from one of the banned countries from 1975 to the end of 2024 was about 1 in 13.9 billion per year,” Nowrasteh wrote.

Trump's order also pulls the rug from under nearly 200,000 Afghans who have relocated to the U.S. since America's chaotic and botched exit from the country in 2021. That includes about 14,000 resettled refugees who arrived in the 12 months through September.

Trump, who suspended refugee resettlement for Afghans on his first day in office, on Wednesday criticized Afghanistan's passport authority and its screening and vetting measures.

Representatives of the Afghan government did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

“To include Afghanistan — a nation whose people stood alongside American service members for 20 years — is a moral disgrace. It spits in the face of our allies, our veterans, and every value we claim to uphold,” #AfghanEvac’s VanDiver added.

For experts watching Trump’s approach to the developing world since before he first took office in 2017, the move was less of a surprise.

...Hopes he will be popular with the more bigoted members of our society.

That would make for an interesting parody. Dr. Orangeman and his Maganiks.