Nationals of 12 countries will be barred from entering the United States: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Partial bans have also been placed on nationals from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Many on the list are majority-Muslim countries, and several of those 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’s referred to the ban as “political theater” and “a second Muslim Ban, dressed up in bureaucracy.”
Trump began a video address on Wednesday by citing 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 a 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 the London-based think tank, Chatham House.
The proclamation 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 sparked a carefully-worded 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.”
“The Commission remains concerned about the potential negative impact of such measures on… relations that have been carefully nurtured over decades,” it added.
