Trump revives a travel ban. Could it be legal this time?
Revisiting a landmark policy from his first term, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation Wednesday night restricting the ability of nationals from 19 countries to enter the United States.
The move echoes the travel ban, referred to by critics as a “Muslim ban,” Mr. Trump ordered in 2017. The proclamation issued this week, while different in notable ways, purports to tackle the same broad policy goal: addressing national security concerns by restricting the ability of individuals from specific countries to enter the U.S.
After federal courts struck down two iterations of Mr. Trump’s initial travel ban, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld it. This new proclamation targets many of the same countries, and critics say it carries many of the same legal – and moral – flaws. Nevertheless, it appears to be on stronger legal footing, and further reinforces the Trump administration’s muscular approach to immigration enforcement.
Why We Wrote This
President Donald Trump’s new travel restrictions on 19 countries draw on lessons he learned implementing a ban during his first term. He cites national security justification, while critics point to legal and moral problems.
What does the proclamation do? And why?
According to a White House fact sheet, the proclamation is intended to “protect the nation from foreign terrorist and other national security and public safety threats from entry into the United States.”
The proclamation goes into effect on Monday. It “fully restricts and limits the entry” of nationals from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
Citizens of seven other countries will face partial restrictions on their entry to the U.S.: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
The White House
The proclamation includes some exemptions, such as legal permanent residents, certain visa categories, and athletes.
The fact sheet says the proclamation comes after national security agencies “engaged in a robust assessment of the risk that countries posed to the United States, including regarding terrorism and national security.”
Countries have been targeted with restrictions because of “inadequate screening and vetting processes,” high visa overstay rates, and a history of not accepting their deported citizens back, and for having a significant terrorist presence or state-sponsored terrorism, according to the White House.
How does it compare to the first travel ban?
The legal authority for the proclamation is Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which allows the president to place entry restrictions on “any class” of immigrants whose entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
The Supreme Court has regularly ruled that courts should defer to the executive branch on matters of immigration enforcement and national security. The high court did so in a 2018 decision upholding Mr. Trump’s first-term travel ban.
Section 212(f) “exudes deference to the President,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion. That travel ban, the majority held, also did not violate the Constitution’s prohibition on the establishment of a single religion.
It took the first Trump administration three tries to reach that point, however. Federal courts struck down earlier versions of that ban on the grounds that it violated the INA and unconstitutionally discriminated against Muslims. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump had promised “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
The proclamation issued this week looks more like the third iteration of the first travel ban. The proclamation offers clear, country-by-country justifications pertaining to national security concerns and immigration law violations. Not all the countries included are majority-Muslim.
What is less clear is why certain countries have not been included. Four countries targeted by the 2017 ban – Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, and Syria – will not be affected by this week’s proclamation.
The White House
Syria has been designated by the U.S. as a state supporter of terrorism since 1979, and is now led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former rebel commander with ties to Al Qaeda. Mr. Trump has sought to thaw relations between the two countries in the past month, however.
Egypt is also not included, though Mr. Trump said a recent antisemitic attack by an Egyptian, in the U.S. on an expired visa, underscored the dangers posed by visa overstays. Some countries with relatively high visa overstay rates, such as Angola, Djibouti, and Liberia, are also excluded.
What concerns are there about the proclamation?
The proclamation is almost certain to face legal challenges. For one, it could face a constitutional challenge like the first travel ban did.
The INA “is clear that there must not be discrimination based on national origin in determining who is allowed to enter the United States,” says Elora Mukherjee, director of the Columbia Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic. “This new proclamation is very clear that there will be blatant discrimination based on national origin.”
Opponents have also said that the Trump administration is overstating the severity of its national security and immigration law concerns.
From 1975 to 2024, one person from one of the 19 targeted countries committed a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, according to Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration law expert at the Cato Institute.
“The threat of foreign-born terrorism and crime is manageable and small, especially from the countries facing new bans and restrictions by the administration,” he wrote in a blog post.
Experts also dispute the Trump administration’s visa overstay statistics. The administration relies on a fiscal year 2023 report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on visa overstays in justifying why certain countries are targeted by the proclamation. For instance, nearly 52% of students and exchange visa holders from Chad overstayed their visa, as did 49% of that country’s business and tourist visa holders, according to the document.
Some experts have said for years that those government reports are not reliable estimates for visa overstays. Earlier versions of the reports “include both actual overstays and unrecorded departures,” one 2017 analysis concluded. A former senior immigration official told Forbes in 2018 that there is “too much guesswork” built into the reports.
The proclamation this week could also cause troubling collateral damage, critics predict. Athletes will be exempt from travel restrictions – important since the U.S. will host the soccer World Cup in 2026 and the Olympic Games in 2028 – but fans from their countries will, presumably, not be able to travel to support them.
Critics have said the proclamation casts doubt on whether spouses of family visa holders would be banned or not. An exemption is provided for holders of immediate family visas “with clear and convincing evidence of identity and family relationship (e.g. DNA).”
Much about how the proclamation will be enforced remains unclear. With lawsuits likely to reach federal courts in advance of the proclamation taking effect next week, the Trump administration will be expected to have answers.
Monitor staff writer Tanya Raghu contributed to this report.
