- Fact Sheet
Analysis of Trump's New Travel Ban
Published
Background
On June 4, 2025, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation restricting or limiting the entry of nationals from 19 countries, effective at 12:01am on June 9, 2025. The proclamation invokes sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to completely restrict immigrant and non-immigrant visas and legal entry from 12 countries and partially restrict certain immigrant and non-immigrant visas and legal entry from seven others, with narrow exceptions. The Trump administration is using the same legal authority it has relied on for prior travel bans.
In his first term, President Trump invoked this authority to restrict some or nearly all visas from 15 countries, ranging from a near-complete visa ban for Iranian nationals (except for student and exchange visas) to a narrower ban on non-immigrant visas alone for North Korea, to a very limited non-immigrant visa ban on specific Venezuelan government officials. In 2018, in Trump v. Hawaii, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Trump’s third effort to impose a travel ban, after courts blocked his first two efforts.
Throughout the remainder of his first term, the Trump administration made several changes to the list of banned countries, adding some countries (such as Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Tanzania) and removing others (such as Chad). Each country on the list was subject to different restrictions, often with little explanation as to why.
President Trump’s new proclamation imposes a sweeping set of visa bans to more countries than his previous term. It applies to people who are outside of the United States and who do not have a valid visa issued by the effective date.
The 12 countries with near-complete visa restrictions are:
- Afghanistan
- Burma
- Chad
- Republic of the Congo
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Haiti
- Iran
- Libya
- Somalia
- Sudan
- Yemen
Subject to the exceptions listed below, restrictions on nationals of these countries include a total ban on entry and a total ban on visa issuance. This includes people seeking an immigrant visa (which results in lawful permanent residency upon arrival to the U.S.) or any non-immigrant visa category (which includes temporary visitors, guest workers, and students, among others). All people in these categories are prohibited from entering the United States, even those waiting to permanently migrate to the U.S. to reunite with family or through employment.
The seven countries with partial visa restrictions are:
- Burundi
- Cuba
- Laos
- Sierra Leone
- Togo
- Turkmenistan
- Venezuela
Subject to the exceptions listed below, the restrictions on nationals of these countries include a total ban on visa issuance for people seeking an immigrant visa, and a partial ban on visa issuance for people seeking certain non-immigrant visas. Specifically, this ban applies to people who have applied for the following non-immigrant visas: B-1 (business visitor), B-2 (tourist), F and M (international students), and J (exchange visitor) visas.
That means that nationals of the countries with partial restrictions seeking to obtain other non-immigrant visas after June 9, 2025 are not subject to the ban, including those seeking visas as specialty occupation workers (H-1B), intracompany transferees (L-1) and fiancés (K-1). However, for individuals seeking visas in non-banned categories, consular officers are instructed to “reduce the validity [period] for any other nonimmigrant visa... to the extent permitted by law.”
Importantly, this ban is prospective — it does not apply retroactively to individuals who obtained a visa before June 9, 2025, even if they were outside the U.S. on that date. Individuals with valid visas who are inside the United States before June 9, 2025 are also not impacted — their visas will remain valid and effective. Additionally, the proclamation states that no immigrant or non-immigrant visa issued before the effective date can be revoked under the proclamation.
There are also a number of exemptions from both bans carved out under Section 4(b) of the proclamation. These include:
- Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs)
- Refugees, asylees, and individuals granted Withholding of Removal or protection under the Convention Against Torture
- Diplomats and NATO personnel
- Dual nationals (if traveling on a passport from a non-designated country)
- Immediate relatives (spouses, minor children, or parents of U.S. citizens who are at least 21 years old), with proof of their relationship
- Children adopted abroad
- Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders and U.S. government employee SIVs
- Immigrant visa applicants who are ethnic or religious minorities facing persecution in Iran
- Athletes, coaches and support staff, and immediate relatives of athletes participating in “major sporting events,” including the Olympics and the World Cup
- Individuals whose entry is deemed in the national interest by the U.S. Attorney General or Secretary of State
Individuals covered by one of these exemptions are not subject to the visa bans and should continue to be able to enter and to seek and obtain visas. However, individuals may be subject to additional screening or face other hurdles in obtaining visas that arise as a result of the travel bans.
The Trump administration cites national security as the primary justification for imposing this travel ban, relying heavily on section 212(f) of the INA. That statute allows the president to suspend the entry of noncitizens if deemed detrimental to U.S. interests.
According to the proclamation, the ban is based on three core concerns:
- Inadequate vetting and information sharing: The U.S. claims that some of these countries do not provide sufficient data to verify the identity and background of visa applicants.
- High visa overstay rates: The administration cites to a fiscal year 2023 “Entry/Exit Overstay Report” by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to claim that nationals of some of these countries remain in the U.S. unlawfully at unacceptably high rates after their temporary visas expire.
- Recalcitrant countries: Some of the countries subject to the new travel restrictions have refused to cooperate with the U.S. in accepting nationals for repatriation who have been ordered deported.
While the first justification has legal precedent (affirmed by the Supreme Court in Trump v. Hawaii), the second and third are new. There are already statutory tools that allow the U.S. to penalize recalcitrant countries (e.g., visa sanctions), but this proclamation appears to bypass those mechanisms and relies instead on a broader presidential authority. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates of “visa overstay rates” are often significantly overinflated, do not account for people who temporarily overstay while seeking a different status (such as asylum), and often are based on very small overall numbers of people. For example, the nation of Chad, with a population of over 19 million people, had just 377 suspected B-1/B-2 tourist visa overstays in 2023.
Section 5 of the proclamation establishes a process to “adjust” and remove restrictions. The Secretary of State must establish a process within 90 days from the issuance of the proclamation (June 4, 2025) and every 180 days thereafter to review and recommend to the president whether any restrictions imposed should be modified or terminated. This section also directs the Secretary of State to engage with the covered countries to modify their process to comply with U.S. “screening, vetting, immigration, and security requirements.” During Trump’s first term in office, the travel bans were modified twice to add or remove countries.
In total, the 19 countries subject to these bans have a combined population of over 475 million people. Data produced by the Department of State shows that in 2023, the 12 countries subject to near-complete restrictions were issued 13,507 immigrant visas (excluding those for immediate relatives Afghan Special Immigrants) and 57,146 non-immigrant visas (excluding the categories exempted in the ban). The seven countries subject to partial visa restrictions were issued 20,564 immigrant visas (excluding immediate relative visas) and 69,411 non-immigrant B-1, B-2, F, M, and J visas.
As a result, the proclamation has the potential to block at least 34,000 immigrant visas and over 125,000 non-immigrant visas from being issued each year.
In addition, the proclamation will likely have significant economic impacts by restricting travel and migration from the targeted countries. In 2022, at least 298,600 noncitizens from countries affected by the new travel ban arrived in the United States.1 The following year, households with nationals from the targeted countries collectively earned $3.2 billion in income, paid $715.6 million in federal, state, and local taxes, and held $2.5 billion in spending power. Of the 69,700 noncitizens from countries affected by the near-complete visa restrictions, the majority came from Haiti, Afghanistan, and Iran. Nearly 228,900 came from countries affected by the partial travel ban, with a majority from Cuba and Venezuela.
In addition, about 4.3 million people from the 19 countries lived in the United States in 2023, including 2.4 million naturalized citizens. Many of them would not be able to reunite with their family members living abroad, while others who plan to travel internationally may face barriers or limited options to return to the country. The chilling effect of the ban will likely have long-term impact on these groups that hold significant economic clout. More than half of them lived in Florida or California in 2023.
Furthermore, the travel ban will have broader impacts on the economy. As an example, the near-complete ban applies to people who enter the United States as crew members (C-1 visas) or who transit the country to other destinations (D-1 visas), which can have ramifications for the international transportation and supply chains that support the U.S. and global economies. And the narrow “major sporting events” exceptions for the World Cup and Olympics will significantly limit the ability for non-immediate relatives and other supporters of those events to participate.
As with the Trump administration’s prior travel bans, this proclamation is likely to carry significant social, legal, and economic consequences. Barring individuals from entering the United States solely based on their nationality not only undermines the fundamental principles of fairness that define our immigration system, but it also threatens to destabilize communities, separate families, and inflict long-term harm on our economy. Rather than enhancing national security, this policy risks disrupting the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people and weakening the values that have long anchored our nation’s approach to immigration.
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