WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump signed a proclamation banning the nationals of 12 countries from entering the US, saying the move was needed to protect the country against “foreign terrorists” and other security threats.
The directive is part of an immigration crackdown Mr Trump launched in 2025 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 enrolments of some foreign students and deport others.
The countries affected by the latest travel ban are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of 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.
The ban will not apply to those who already have visas, lawful permanent residents of the US, or teams travelling for the World Cup or Olympics, Bloomberg reported.
Those with special visas to escape persecution in Iran or for assisting the US military effort in Afghanistan are also exempted.
“We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm,” Mr Trump said in a video posted on X. He also said the list could be revised and new countries could be added.
The proclamation is effective on June 9 at 12.01am Eastern Daylight Time (12.01pm Singapore time). Visas issued before that date will not be revoked, the order said.
During his first term in office, Mr 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Former president Joe Biden, a Democrat who succeeded Mr Trump, repealed the ban on nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen in 2021, calling it “a stain on our national conscience”.
Mr 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 travellers’ identities, inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories and high rates of visa overstays in the US.
“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,” Mr Trump said.
He cited the June 1 incident in Boulder, Colorado, in which a man tossed a gasoline 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.
Being in the US a ‘big risk’
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,” Mr Dahir Hassan Abdi, the Somali ambassador to the US, said in a statement.
Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, a close ally of President Nicolas Maduro, responded on the evening of June 4 by describing the US government as fascist and warning Venezuelans of being in the US.
He said: “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 June 5 to the spokesperson of Myanmar’s military government were not answered. Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry of Laos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr 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”.
Mr Trump issued an executive order on Jan 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”. REUTERS
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