Trump Bans Travel Into US From 12 Countries
BBC News
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Donald Trump has signed a ban on travel to the US from 12 countries, including Afghanistan, Haiti and Iran, in a bid to "protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors"
There are an additional seven countries whose nationals face partial travel restrictions, including Cuba and Venezuela
There are some exemptions, including athletes travelling for major sporting events, some Afghan nationals and dual nationals with citizenship in unaffected countries
"We don't want them," Trump said as he announced the ban, while also citing the Colorado attack on Sunday – BBC Verify is fact-checking his reasons for the ban
The travel ban, which comes into effect on 9 June, fulfils a promise Trump made during his 2024 election campaign, and is likely to draw swift legal challenges
On Wednesday, Trump also suspended foreign students joining Harvard University for six months, and ordered an investigation into Joe Biden's time at the White House
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Watch: President Trump announces travel ban from 'high-risk regions'
Edited by Jamie Whitehead and Jenna Moon
Emery Makumeno
Reporting from Kinshasa
When people here in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo first heard that "Congo" was on the list of countries affected by the travel ban, many initially assumed it applied to them.
It was only later that people realised the ban applied to Congo-Brazzaville – the country which lies on the opposite bank of the River Congo.
DR Congo is the much larger country – two-thirds the size of Western Europe – and is most often in the news with a rebellion in the east, while Congo-Brazzaville is far smaller, and quieter.
President Trump often lashes out against immigrants from Congo, who he says might be entering the US from mental institutions or are members of criminal organisations – without clarifying which Congo he is referring to.
According to the White House, Congo-Brazzaville is on the list because around 30% of its nationals who go to the US overstay their visas.
DR Congo and the US are negotiating a deal, involving access to rare earth that will benefit the US high-tech industry, in exchange of security and development opportunities for the Congolese.
Any travel ban on DR Congo could have been viewed by the government here as a threat to any future trade agreement.
The travel ban announcement comes after a US judge ruled to temporarily halt deportation proceedings against the family of a man accused of the Colorado attack on Sunday.
As a reminder, as he announced the travel ban Donald Trump said the attack "underscored the extreme dangers" posed by foreign nationals who had not been "properly vetted".
The man accused of carrying out the attack, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, has been identified as an Egyptian national, but Egypt is not included on the list of banned countries.
Officials say his family, who are not charged in the attack, are Egyptian citizens.
US District Judge Gordon Gallagher, a Biden appointee, ordered deportation proceedings to be halted, a day after the White House said it had six one-way tickets to deport the wife and five children from the US.
Lawyers for the defence had accused the government of unfairly targeting the family, who say they were unaware of Soliman's alleged plans and have co-operated with investigators.
From Monday, citizens from 12 countries – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – will be banned from travelling to the US.
Those from another seven countries – Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela – will be subject to a partial ban.
For most countries included on the list, the White House cites a mixture of visa overstay rates and political instability.
The sole reason mentioned for the bans affecting Congo-Brazzaville, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Burundi, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo and Turkmenistan, for example, are the percentage of people overstaying their US visa.
Other reasons frequently cited include nations previously not accepting "removable nationals", criticism of the authorities which issue passports in the country, or an inability to access criminal records of migrants.
Security concerns are also cited in the proclamation. The White House accuses Iran and Cuba of being a "state sponsor of terrorism", says there is a "historical terrorist presence" in Libya, and calls Somalia "a terrorist safe haven".
Meanwhile for Haiti, the proclamation says "hundreds of thousands of illegal Haitian aliens flooded into the United States during the Biden administration", which it says "harms American communities".
After Donald Trump signed an executive order restricting foreign student visas at Harvard University, China's foreign ministry spokesperson says the country "opposes politicising education co-operation".
In its fact sheet following the order, the White House claimed Harvard was the top overseas "overseas party school" for Chinese Communist Party officials.
Speaking to reporters at a regular press briefing, Lin Jian says educational co-operation between the two countries is "mutually beneficial" and moves made by the US will "only harm its own image and international credibility".
Lin adds that China will "firmly safeguard the legitimate interests of its students and scholars overseas".
Dive deeper: The fallout from Trump's war on Harvard will long outlast his presidency, writes North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher
Along with the announcement on a ban on travel to the United States from 12 countries, plus restrictions on seven more, a few other announcements were made by the US president on Wednesday:
Foreign student visas at Harvard suspended
Trump has suspended the entry of foreign students seeking to study or participate in exchange programmes at Harvard University for six months.
Trump says this is because of national security concerns, Harvard has called the order "retaliatory" and emphasised it would continue to protect its international students, according to the Reuters news agency.
Joe Biden's actions during his presidency investigated
The president has ordered an investigation into his predecessor's actions during his time in the White House, accusing Joe Biden's aides of a "conspiracy" to "deceive the public about Biden's mental state". Trump says the conspiracy "marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history" – Biden says Trump's move is "ridiculous".
The White House says the travel ban will come into effect at 00:01 EST (05:01 BST) on 9 June – just under four days time.
It adds that key government officials will "immediately engage" with the countries affected by the order, "on measures that must be taken to comply with United States screening, vetting, immigration, and security requirements".
"President Trump has a mandate from the American people to address illegal and dangerous immigration," Congressman Clay Higgins of Louisiana tells the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.
Higgins, a Republican who sits on the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, says immigrants who have come to the US who were “not properly vetted” or overstayed their visas are "now in the country illegally".
He claims some of those who arrived in the US legally "have committed terrorist acts against our people".
Higgins is pressed as to why Egypt isn't on the list of banned countries – Trump cited an attack in Colorado at the weekend when announcing the travel ban. An Egyptian national, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, has been charged in the attack.
Travelling to the US is a "privilege, not a right", the congressman responds, claiming Americans have "had enough of immigrants coming to our country, violating our laws and committing violence among our people".
He adds that the US is "not a racist nation", saying: "We have the right to control our borders."
"This new travel ban mirrors much from the first Trump administration," Robyn Barnard from Human Rights First in Washington DC tells Newsday on the BBC World Service.
"There is no clear thread between each," she continues. "The commonalities are that many of these countries are places that people are fleeing due to conflict, violence and restrictive polices against women and girls and LGTBQ individuals and others."
Barnard goes on to describe Trump's list as "truly punitive", saying that the administration is trying to punish countries they don't want migrants from.
"It really feels like it's about punishment and creating more chaos and disfunction in our immigration system," she says.
Trump's last travel ban triggered protests across the US in 2017
During his first term in the White House, Trump ordered a travel ban against people from seven Muslim-majority countries from coming to the US.
Critics called it a "Muslim ban", and the order faced several legal challenges.
It was amended several times before being upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. Trump's successor Joe Biden repealed the order in 2021.
But this time around it's a savvier version, our North America correspondent Jake Kwon writes.
Last time a crucial question in the legal battle over the bill was whether it discriminated against travellers based on their religion.
This time, the order doesn't just target majority Muslim nations. Trump says the rationale for the countries chosen is based on visa overstay rates or political instability.
There are some similarities in the nations chosen. Iran, Libya and Somalia are among those featuring on both lists.
However there is a difference in how long the policy is due to last. Last time it was only 90 to 120 days, but today's has no end date.
Let's bring you more of what the US president had to say as he announced the travel ban in a video on his Truth Social platform.
Donald Trump said a recent attack in Boulder, Colorado – where 12 people were injured when a man attacked a group gathering in support of Israeli hostages – "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, adding that he believes the US can't have "open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter".
The strength of these new restrictions applied depends on the "severity of the threat posed," Trump continued, adding that the list of countries under the ban is "subject to revision" if improvements are made.
US President Donald Trump signed a travel ban order on Wednesday night, barring entry to the US for citizens from a number of countries across the world. Here's what you need to know:
Who will be banned from entering the US?
From 9 June, citizens from 12 countries – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – will be banned from travelling to the US.
Those from another seven countries – Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela – will be subject to a partial ban.
Is anyone exempt?
There are a few exemptions to this new policy – including athletes travelling for major sporting events, some dual nationals and Afghan nationals holding Special Immigrant Visas.
The order also says the secretary of state may grant exemptions on a "case-by-case" basis.
What has Trump said?
The US can't have "open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter", the US president said in a video announcing the ban.
Jonathan Head
South East Asia Correspondent
Many Burmese refugees hope to find a home in the US
When we look at the nationalities of people who have carried out attacks on the United States, we'll see that many of them are from countries friendly to the US, which have not been subject to a travel ban in this case.
Trump says the countries on his list do not have capacity to vet their own citizens. Myanmar is in a state of collapse, so that's quite true.
But there hasn't been any record of anyone from the country ever carrying out any kind of attack on the US. It simply isn't a credible threat.
In the end, this travel ban applies to a country where huge numbers of its citizens have fled and are living in exile – many of them hoping to find a home in the US.
There are already nearly 250,000 Burmese living in the US, and many of them are refugees with a very well-founded fear of persecution.
The worst perpetrators of human rights abuses in Myanmar are mostly already banned from travelling to the US.
Extending the ban to all citizens will mostly affect those fighting against the military for the restoration of democracy. These include activists living in precarious situations in neighbouring countries where they don't have status – many of them hoping at some point to get to the US.
So this is a pretty baffling decision. 
Will Grant
Mexico, Central America and Cuba correspondent
From the perspective of many Haitians, there will be indignation at this travel ban, coming as it does with the country in the grip of its biggest security crisis in living memory.
Under the Biden administration and then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, there was a tacit recognition that Washington had played a crucial role in hand-picking the current leadership in Haiti and was at least partly responsible for transnational effort to stop Haiti becoming a failed state.
That ensured that Haitians in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) were in no danger of being deported to a nation on its knees.
As such, to see Haiti on the travel ban list will be galling for the lucky few with the relevant papers to reach the US.
It will feel to many like the definition of kicking a nation when it's down, by one of its supposedly closest partners.
Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu
US reporter
Trump says his travel ban order is partially in response to threats of terrorism.
But besides Iran, none of the 12 countries hit by the ban are named on the US government's State Sponsors of Terrorism list.
Trump also said some of the countries, such as Libya and Sudan, were put on the list because of the "competence of the central authority for issuance of passports".
Many of the countries have ongoing armed conflicts. Others were on the list because their governments don't give access to criminal records, he said.
The order also says some of the countries have been put on the list because of difficulties US officials have had deporting citizens from those countries back home.
Generally, people scheduled to be deported require travel documents from their home countries.
With regards to the partial ban on tourists, business travellers and students from seven other countries, Trump said it was because of a high rate of visa overstays by its citizens.
As we have reported, Egypt is not on the list of banned countries – despite Trump citing the recent attack in Colorado by an Egyptian national when announcing the travel ban.
During President Trump's first term there were many protests against his original travel ban
Human rights groups have criticsed the ban, with Amnesty International USA describing it as "discriminatory, racist, and downright cruel".
"By targeting people based on their nationality, this ban only spreads disinformation and hate," it wrote in a post on social media site X.
Human Rights First, also based in the US, condemned it as "yet another anti-immigrant and punitive action, external taken by President Trump".
“The ban will harm refugees, asylum seekers, and other vulnerable populations, including many who have been waiting to reunite with loved ones in our country," said the organisation's Senior Director of Refugee Advocacy Robyn Barnard in a statement.
"Bans do nothing to make our country secure, but rather undermine our national security and arbitrarily target those most in need of protection," he said.
Several major sporting events are due to be held in the US over the next few years.
These include the 2026 World Cup – jointly hosted by Canada, Mexico and the US – and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
As it stands, though, the travel ban will seemingly not affect athletes from prohibited countries competing.
The almost 4,500 word long proclamation contains a single line which outlines the exemption: "Any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, traveling for the World Cup, Olympics, or other major sporting event as determined by the Secretary of State."
A few hours ago, US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation banning citizens of a dozen countries from travelling to the US.
If you're just joining us, here's what to know:
We'll continue to bring you the latest updates as we get them. Please stay with us.
Koh Ewe
Live page reporter
As we have reported, Egypt is not on the list of banned countries – despite Trump citing the recent attack in Colorado by an Egyptian national when announcing the travel ban.
There are clues as to why that is the case.
The US and Egypt have a strong defence alliance – a partnership that the US calls a "pillar for regional stability". Egypt is one of the biggest beneficiaries of US economic and military aid in the Middle East, receiving a total of $1.4bn from US agencies in 2023.
During his first term, Trump built close ties with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The Egyptian leader, who has ruled the country with an iron first for the past decade, has been described by Trump as his "favourite dictator".
However, bilateral ties in Trump's second term have been complicated by Israel's war in Gaza.
Trump's suggestions for displaced Palestinians to be relocated to Egypt has been rejected by Cairo, which is trying to lead efforts to reconstruct a war-ravaged Gaza.
Jake Kwon
North America Correspondent
President Trump is resurrecting his earlier travel ban – but this time, with more calculation.
His first attempt targeted seven Muslim-majority countries. It was immediately challenged in courts across the US. Its opponents argued the ban was unconstitutional and illegal because it discriminated against travellers based on their religion.
The White House amended the travel ban twice to dispel the air of religious discrimination, which eventually won it the Supreme Court's approval.
This time, Trump has learned his lesson.
His administration reinstated a version of the order similar to the one that was upheld by the Supreme Court. This version does not target Muslim nations. Its stated rationale for the selection of countries is visa overstay rates or political instability in the target country.
And unlike the earlier version, which was to last for only 90 to 120 days, today's order has no end date. It merely calls for a periodic review.
Harvard University has denounced Trump's executive order, which now bans it from bringing in new foreign students for six months.
"This is yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the Administration in violation of Harvard's First Amendment rights," said a Harvard spokesman. "Harvard will continue to protect its international students."
Trump signed an order to restrict foreign student visas at Harvard – amid an escalating battle between universities and the US president – along with his recently announced travel ban.
"President Trump wants our institutions to have foreign students, but believes that the foreign students should be people that can love our country," the White House said in a fact sheet.
It alleged Harvard was the top overseas academic institution for Chinese Communist Party officials, noting that President Xi Jinping’s daughter had studied there in the 2010s.
According to the White House, Harvard had a history of foreign ties with potential security implications, failed to supply sufficient information about students' illegal activities; and had extensive contacts with foreign adversaries such as China.
It also said that many agitators behind antisemitic incidents were foreign students.
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