What to know about Trump’s order to restrict travel from 19 countries

 

President Donald Trump announced restrictions on individuals coming to the United States from more than dozen countries on Wednesday, broadening a policy from his first term and amplifying the administration’s stringent approach to immigration.

The ban, which is set to go into effect on Monday, has been criticized by rights groups for targeting several African and majority Muslim nations, and for appearing to capitalize on a moment of public grief after Sunday’s attack in Boulder, Colorado. Trump’s previous 2017 travel ban had two iterations before a third was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018, and some legal experts expect the new restrictions will also face legal challenges. Here’s what to know.

Trump wants to ban travelers from which countries?

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The Trump administration is restricting the entry of individuals traveling from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Trump is also imposing a partial ban on seven countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

How were the countries with travel bans selected?

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Trump said the ban is in the interest of national security, writing that the U.S. must “ensure those admitted to the country do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles.” Countries were selected based on factors such as their screening processes for their citizens’ travel documents; visa overstay rate; historic cooperation with the removal of their citizens; and “terrorist presence,” the announcement said.

Human rights groups criticized the ban as overly broad and politically motivated. It would prevent “entry to individuals and families fleeing war, persecution, and oppression, forcing them to remain in dangerous conditions,” Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, said in a statement. “This policy is not about national security — it is about sowing division and vilifying communities that are seeking safety and opportunity in the United States.”

What’s the difference between a full and partial travel ban?

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The full travel bans prohibit all nationals from a particular country as immigrants or nonimmigrants from entry to the United States, with a few exceptions. Partial bans affect individuals holding specific visas, including visas for students, business, tourism or exchange visitors.

Are there exceptions?

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There are exceptions, including for permanent residents, existing visa holders, certain visa categories such as A-1 (foreign diplomat or foreign government official) and those whose entry “would serve a United States national interest.” The order also says it will allow entry for those with immediate family immigrant visas “with clear and convincing evidence of identity and family relationship (e.g., DNA),” as well as for athletes and team members participating in major sporting competitions.

How is it different from the travel ban during Trump’s first term?

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People welcome arriving passengers at Dulles International Airport on Jan. 28, 2017, as they protest Trump's first travel ban. (Astrid Riecken/For The Washington Post)

When Trump announced a travel ban in 2017 during his first administration, it sparked chaos at airports around the country and went through multiple iterations amid legal challenges until the Supreme Court upheld a third version in 2018. That version barred travel from eight countries: Syria, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, North Korea, Chad and Venezuela — though Chad was eventually dropped. Some legal analysts believe the new ban will be harder to challenge because of the 2018 Supreme Court decision, while others anticipate obstacles, The Washington Post reported.

This time, Trump previewed the ban months earlier, on Inauguration Day in January, directing the heads of the departments of State, Justice, and Homeland Security, and the director of U.S. intelligence agencies, to identify countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”

The new ban no longer bars nationals from Syria and North Korea, and moves Venezuela from a full ban to a partial ban. Several countries are newly facing full bans.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, noted in a statement that this ban “contains several important exceptions,” including for anyone who has legal status and immediate family members of U.S. citizens looking to immigrate. This “makes the ban less extreme than the two original Muslim Bans that President Trump enacted during his first term before successful lawsuits blocked their implementation,” CAIR said. Still, CAIR’s National Executive Director Nihad Awad called the ban “unnecessary, overbroad and ideologically motivated.”