In June, President Trump built on the legacy of his first term by implementing a new travel ban under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to “suspend the entry” of nationals from 19 countries. The initial action in June called for federal officials to suggest additional countries to ban.
That expansion has now come. On December 16, President Trump issued a newly enlarged travel ban, restricting the entry of nationals of 20 new countries (as well as the Palestinian Authority) and cutting back on exceptions included in the prior ban.
With this new ban in place, roughly 1 in 5 people seeking to immigrate to the United States legally are now barred from doing so, and hundreds of thousands more seeking nonimmigrant visas to visit or reside temporarily will now be unable to do so.
What did the June travel ban do?
The June travel ban imposed two categories of visa restrictions on 19 countries in total. 12 countries (Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen) were subjected to a ban on all non-immigrant and immigrant visas. 7 countries (Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela) were subject to a ban on all immigrant visas and a slightly more limited ban on tourist, student, and exchange visitor visas.
Like the travel bans in Trump’s first term, there were exceptions. The June ban did not apply to, among others, anyone with a current green card or a current valid visa; athletes, coaches, and their families attending the World Cup, Olympics, or other sporting events, people who are immediate relatives of a U.S. citizen (spouses, children under the age of 21, and parents); children adopted abroad; and Afghans seeking Special Immigrant Visas for their work helping U.S. armed forces
Although the Trump administration stopped publishing monthly data on visa issuance before the June travel ban went into effect, data from 2024 showed that 25,086 immigrant visas and 136,901 nonimmigrant visas were issued to nationals of the 19 banned countries, with the highest numbers going to Venezuelans, Iranians, and Cubans. However, because many immigrant visas go to immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, the impact was likely limited by the exception.
What changes have been made in the expanded travel ban?
The biggest change in the travel ban is an expansion of which countries are subject to restrictions. Under the new ban, the following seven countries are now subject to a total ban on immigrant and non-immigrant visas:
- Burkina Faso
- Laos
- Mali
- Niger
- Sierra Leone
- South Sudan
- Syria
Additionally, a total of 19 countries are now banned from all immigrant visas and all tourist, student, and exchange visitor visas (B-1, B-2, B-1/B-2, F, M, and J visas):
- Angola
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Benin
- Burundi
- Cote d’Ivoire
- Cuba
- Dominica
- Gabon
- The Gambia
- Malawi
- Mauritania
- Nigeria
- Senegal
- Tanzania
- Togo
- Tonga
- Venezuela
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe.
Only one country, Turkmenistan, saw a positive change; it will now be subject only to a ban on immigrant visas, but will not be banned from nonimmigrant visas.
In addition, the Trump administration moved to eliminate multiple exceptions included in the June ban. Specifically, the following three categories of people are no longer eligible for visas if they come from one of the 39 countries that are now subject to bans:
- Immediate relatives of U.S citizens.
- Children adopted abroad.
- Afghans seeking Special Immigrant Visas for their work assisting U.S. armed forces.
The Trump administration gave no explanation at all for its decision to bar international adoptions for nationals of these 29 countries. In support of banning U.S. citizens from obtaining visas for their children, spouses, and parents, President Trump declared that, “Familial ties can serve … as unique vectors for fraudulent, criminal, or even terrorist activity through means such as the domestic or international financing of such activity,” and therefore family of U.S. citizens should not be exempted from broad visa bans. As a result, under the new ban, U.S. citizens seeking to bring over their spouses and children from travel banned countries will be unable to do so, unless they manage to obtain an individual national interest waiver.
The country most heavily impacted by the new restrictions is Nigeria. Over the last decade (excluding the COVID years of 2020 and 2021), Nigerians received an average of 128,000 immigrant and nonimmigrant visas on an annual basis. Nearly all of these visas will now be restricted, blocking legal immigration from the most populous country in Africa.
In addition, two of the newly banned countries, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire, qualified for the World Cup in 2026, which will mostly be held in the United States. Under the new travel ban, any fans of those countries who don’t have valid visas as of January 1, 2026 will be barred from getting them and unable to attend the games in person.
What is the reasoning behind the ban?
As with the June travel bans, Trump claims that the bans are justified by national security concerns about vetting, as well as the argument that many of these countries have high visa overstay rates. Yet as before, the Trump administration has never made a clear connection between a total ban on visas, even for small children, and national security. And as with the June travel ban, no explanation is provided as to why high nonimmigrant visa overstay rates justify barring immigrant visas, nor why other countries with similarly high nonimmigrant visa overstay rates were not banned.
For example, the new ban says that nationals of the small Pacific island nation of Tonga should be banned from immigrating to the United States because 6.5% of its nationals overstayed tourist visas (152 suspected overstays out of 2,358 expected departures) and 14.4% of its nationals overstayed student or exchange visitor visas (13 suspected overstays out of 90 expected departures). Yet those rates are broadly comparable to multiple other countries which were not subject to restrictions, including Armenia, which has a 6.3% tourist visa overstay rate, or Ethiopia, which has an 8.1 tourist visa overstay rate and a 14.0% student and exchange visitor visa overstay rate.
Allegations of racism against African and Muslim immigrants continue to linger over the rationales offered in the latest ban, which came just days after President Trump declared that Somalians were “garbage” and that he wanted to ban all immigration from “third world countries.” Following the ban being issued, the Department of Homeland Security even described its restrictions on legal immigration as “slamming the door shut on the foreign invaders who have undermined our national security.” This rhetoric may provide opportunities for challengers seeking to block the bans in court.
Will the ban impact people who are already inside the United States?
Because the travel ban restricts entry, there are no immediate impacts on people who are currently present in the United States. However, in late November, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services put in place a blanket pause on the adjudication of all immigration benefits for nationals subject to the June travel ban. This suspension applies to all benefits, including visa petitions, green card applications, and even citizenship oath ceremonies.
This suspension has now been extended to nationals of the 20 newly-banned countries. As a result, this means that there are now 39 countries whose nationals are currently unable to obtain immigration status and come here from abroad, or obtain or change their immigration status from within the U.S.
Hundreds of thousands of people who would otherwise qualify to obtain, maintain, or change their immigration status under current immigration law are now in limbo — as are their U.S. citizen family members or employers who may seek to sponsor them.