Congressman Mike Lawler on Thursday came out against Haiti’s inclusion on President Trump’s travel ban.

The move prevents the entry of foreigners from 12 countries who are seeking to come to the U.S. permanently as legal immigrants, as well as those with temporary visas, including tourists. Lawler is strongly urging the Trump administration to reconsider the full suspension of entry for Haitian nationals.

“We have a moral duty to help”

Lawler, a Republican who represents all of Rockland and portions of Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties in New York, said Haiti’s humanitarian crisis, including gang-related atrocities that have resulted in 1,600 killed in the first three months of 2025, is reason enough to embrace the troubled Caribbean nation, not reject its people outright.

“Haiti’s disaster has been growing, and given our proximity to the nation and our historical interventions. We have a moral duty to help. Haitians cannot do it alone,” Lawler said in a statement. “This travel ban will only deepen the suffering of Haitians, many of whom have strong ties to the U.S., including the vibrant Haitian diaspora in the Hudson Valley that I represent in Congress, and risks isolating Haiti further at a time when they need our support most.”

Back in February, Lawler urged Mr. Trump to maintain Temporary Protected Status for Haitian citizens in the U.S., noting the country’s “unstable and dangerous” conditions following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, which gave way to a rise in gang violence.

“I strongly urge the Trump administration to immediately remove Haiti from this list, or at the very least, reduce it to a partial ban as was done for countries like Cuba and Venezuela,” Lawler said. “Last month, Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio testified that the Trump administration is ‘prepared to play a leading role’ in the Organization of American States and asserted that the UN-authorized Multinational Security Support Mission ‘alone will not solve this problem.’ I urge the administration to move forward with such a leading role, including a potential security mission led by OAS to end the crisis and lead Haiti on a path to stability.”

Here are the countries on the travel ban list

Citing national security in the wake of last week’s terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, Mr. Trump signed a proclamation on Wednesday night that bars travelers from the following countries to enter the U.S. permanently as legal immigrants, as well as those with temporary visas:

Afghanistan

Myanmar

Chad

The Republic of the Congo

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Haiti

Iran

Libya

Somalia

Sudan

Yemen

The proclamation also partially suspends the entry of travelers and immigrants from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

The ban takes effect on Monday.

“People can’t even leave and try to get a better life”

CBS News New York’s Mahsa Saeidi spoke to families at the Haitian Consulate on Fifth Avenue.

“With Trump putting this into place, it is really hard because now people can’t even leave and try to get a better life,” Franky Joseph said. “I feel like this is totally, completely discriminating against certain groups.”

Joseph had come to the consulate to get passports for his relatives, but now he has all new questions.

“For me to be here is a privilege, but at the same time I would love to go back to my country and help my people,” Joseph said. “If the people that stay and then they leave, can they come back?”

Consul General Jean Ary Ceant said phones started ringing off the hook the second news of the travel ban broke.

According to the order signed by Mr. Trump, the ban does not apply to people with visas already in the country. Ceant says even before this latest crackdown, Haitians were on edge.

“Right now, everybody is lost, including me,” Ceant said. “People stop going to work in the fear of being caught by ICE and go to Salvador. Not only Haitian, but those countries that are on the list are at the mercy of the immigration officer. They can revoke, they can ban, they deny your entry. It’s going to be up to them.”

“Basically condemning our family and friends to death”

Wesley Jean Simon was born in Haiti and raised in New Jersey. His restaurant, Djon Djon, sits in the heart of Brooklyn’s Little Haiti neighborhood. The enclave is now fearing even more for their families back home.

“His decision is basically condemning our family and friends to death,” Simon said.

More than 1 million Haitian Americans already live in the United States, many fleeing a homeland plagued by gang violence.

“When you’re looking at all these countries that he names, they’re, OK, at war with other countries. We’re at war within ourselves. And all the weapons are coming from where? America,” Simon said.

“The United States can help play an integral role in addressing some of the challenges on the ground, including the gun trafficking that is emanating from the U.S. into Haiti,” Lawler told CBS News New York’s Ali Bauman.

Simon, meanwhile, hopes the ban won’t last long.

“It is going to get reversed sooner than people think,” he said. “There’s no concrete evidence behind why he’s doing it, so he’s just doing it. And then when it suits their policy, then you’re going to turn around and fix it. But how about the people that lost their lives?”

Trump imposed a complete travel ban on nationals of 12 countries, while those from seven more face restrictions.

United States President Donald Trump signed a presidential proclamation on Wednesday banning citizens of 12 countries from entering the US. Heightened restrictions on entering the US have been put in place for nationals of seven more countries.

The travel ban is Trump’s latest move in the immigration crackdown that he promised on the campaign trail before last year’s presidential election.

Trump said the measures would help to “protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors”.

Here is what we know about the travel ban so far:

Which countries’ citizens are fully restricted from travelling to the US?

The 12 countries whose nationals are fully restricted from travelling to the US under Trump’s travel ban are:

Afghanistan

Myanmar

Chad

Republic of the Congo

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Haiti

Iran

Libya

Somalia

Sudan

Yemen

Which countries are subject to partial restrictions?

The seven countries subject to partial restrictions are:

Burundi

Cuba

Laos

Sierra Leone

Togo

Turkmenistan

Venezuela

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How will Trump’s travel ban work?

Citizens from the 12 countries subject to a full ban on travel to the US will face a complete suspension of immigrant and non-immigrant visas.

Citizens from the seven countries which have been placed under partial restrictions will no longer be able to apply for immigrant visas or non-immigrant temporary visas covering permanent immigration, student visas and tourism visas including B-1, B-2, B-1/B-2, F, M and J. They will still be able to apply for some temporary visas, however.

Unlike an executive order, a presidential proclamation is not legally binding but generally signals a policy shift.

The new rules apply only to people outside the US at the time of the proclamation and who did not yet hold a valid visa at the time of the proclamation.

Are there any exceptions to the travel ban?

Yes. The new suspension and restrictions will not apply to:

Lawful permanent residents of the US, also known as green card holders.

Existing visa holders.

Foreign diplomats travelling under certain non-immigrant visa categories.

Dual nationals of the 19 countries included in the ban, if they are travelling on a passport of a country that is not subject to the ban.

Athletes or members of an athletic team, such as coaches, people performing a support role and immediate relatives, travelling for a major sporting event such as the World Cup or Olympics.

Immediate family immigrant visas (IR-1/CR-1, IR-2/CR-2, IR-5) “with clear and convincing evidence of identity and family relationship (eg DNA)”.

Adoptees.

Afghan Special immigrant visas.

Special immigrant visas for US government employees.

Immigrant visas for ethnic and religious minorities facing persecution in Iran.

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How many people could this affect?

“Our analysis of State Department visa data shows the full ban on the 12 countries and partial ban on seven others could affect a sizeable number of people,” said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications at the Migration Policy Institute.

For citizens of the 12 fully banned countries, just more than 50,000 green cards were issued in fiscal year 2023, Mittelstadt told Al Jazeera, citing State Department data. On top of that, just more than 62,000 nationals from these countries were issued with temporary study, work or travel visas that year, giving a collective total of about 112,000 from those 12 countries in 2023.

The same year, citizens of the seven partially banned countries were issued with about 45,000 green cards and 69,000 temporary study, work or travel visas, giving a total of nearly 115,000 visas. Together, that makes more than 226,500 people.

According to Department of Homeland Security data, a total of 363,549 people from the 19 listed countries collectively entered the US in the previous year – 2022, its most recent year for records of arrivals into the US.

Some 250,234 of these people were from Venezuela, which is subject to partial restrictions only.

A further 66,563 of these people were from Haiti, which now faces a complete travel ban.

Who will be worst affected and could families be split up?

Anyone wishing to travel for study or tourism purposes will be affected, as well as anyone who had hoped to move to the US on a longer-term basis. But those who already live in the US could be impacted as well, experts say.

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“Monthly data from fiscal year 2024 suggests that the Department of State issued up to 236,573 visas in categories likely to be affected by the travel ban,” said Cecilia Esterline, a senior immigration policy analyst at the Niskanen Center think tank based in Washington, DC. “If we anticipate a similar number of visas this year, the impact on families and employers could be significant.

“However, the proclamation includes several exemptions that could mitigate at least some of those effects, including exemptions for some spouses and minor children.”

Despite that, the new order is likely to cause a great deal of uncertainty for people already in the US, Mittelstadt said. “For citizens of these countries living in the US who are not naturalised citizens, the travel ban most likely will freeze them in place, as many will be fearful that they might not be permitted re-entry if they leave the US temporarily.”

Mittelstadt added that the travel ban could split families “given the inability to travel legally to the US or apply for a permanent or temporary visa, as well as the immobility this will confer on many citizens of these countries who are already in the US”.

Why has Trump banned arrivals to the US from these countries?

Trump cited security threats and “foreign terrorists” as grounds for the ban.

In a video posted on Wednesday on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump said the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado “has 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”.

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On June 1, police arrested a man who threw incendiary devices towards a group of people attending a rally for the release of captives taken from Israel on October 7, 2023 and held in Gaza. The FBI said it was investigating the incident as “an act of terror”.

Suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman was charged with a federal hate crime, as well as an array of state charges, according to an affidavit by the US Department of Justice. Soliman is an Egyptian national who has also lived in Kuwait. Neither of these countries is on Trump’s list of banned countries.

In a Truth Social post, Trump blamed “[former US President Joe] Biden’s ridiculous Open Border Policy” for allowing Soliman into the country. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said the suspect in the Boulder incident had overstayed a tourist visa, without naming Soliman.

A fact sheet published by the White House stated a specific justification for the exclusion of each country on the new travel ban list.

These justifications included that large numbers of citizens had overstayed their visas, that the countries had a poor record of cooperating with the US to receive their citizens back if they had overstayed in the US, or that the countries were affected by war.

According to the most recent figures from the US Department of Homeland Security, nationals of Chad had the highest overstay rate, at 49.5 percent of those arriving in the US on a visa. Others with high overstay rates were Equatorial Guinea (22 percent), Eritrea (20 percent) and Yemen (19.8 percent).

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On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order, calling on his state department 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”. He referred to this order in his video announcement of the travel ban.

When does the travel ban take effect?

The travel ban will take effect on June 9 at 12:01am EDT (04:01 GMT).

Has Trump done this before?

Yes, Trump enacted a travel ban – dubbed the “Muslim ban” as all but one of the countries on the list at that time were Muslim-majority – during his first term in 2017.

In his Wednesday Truth Social video, Trump said: “In my first term, my powerful travel restrictions were one of our most successful policies and they were a key part of preventing major foreign terror attacks on American soil.”

However, Mittelstadt from the Migration Policy Institute said: “We are unfamiliar with any prior evidence or public statements by the US government that the first-term travel bans prevented any terrorist attacks on US soil.

She explained that while much of intelligence and counter terrorism work is never made public, the first-term travel bans were criticised by some former, high-level intelligence and diplomatic officials who had served in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

In 2017, they issued a joint declaration, filed in the legal challenge to the original travel bans. In this declaration, they said that “banning travel from the original countries did not enhance national security and might even undermine counterterrorism efforts”, Mittelstadt said.

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That earlier ban went through several revisions. It was upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2018. In 2021, Biden repealed this ban, calling it “a stain on our national conscience”.

Could more countries be added to this travel ban in the future?

Yes. In his Truth Social video announcement, Trump said “the list is subject to revision based on whether material improvements are made.

“Likewise, new countries can be added as threats emerge around the world.”

How are affected countries reacting to Trump’s travel ban?

The African Union, which includes seven of the 12 nations on the full travel ban list, said the ban would harm “people-to-people ties, educational exchange, commercial engagement, and broader diplomatic relations” that were built with the US over past decades.

“The African Union Commission respectfully calls upon the US administration to consider adopting a more consultative approach and to engage in constructive dialogue with the countries concerned,” the bloc said in a statement.

Chad responded by suspending visas for US citizens. In a Facebook post on Thursday, President Idriss Deby said: “I have instructed the government to act in accordance with the principles of reciprocity and suspend the issuance of visas to US citizens.”

“The high visa overstay rate for 2022 and 2023 is unacceptable and indicates a blatant disregard for United States immigration laws,” Trump’s proclamation stated.

Other African nations were more conciliatory, however. Dahir Hassan Abdi, the Somali ambassador to the US, said in a statement that Somalia is ready to work with the US. “Somalia values its longstanding relationship with the United States and stands ready to engage in dialogue to address the concerns raised,” he said.

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Trump’s proclamation described Somalia as “a terrorist safe haven” and stated: “Somalia lacks a competent or cooperative central authority for issuing passports or civil documents and it does not have appropriate screening and vetting measures.”

Similarly, Sierra Leone’s information minister, Chernor Bah, said: “Our attitude to this is what more can we do? How can we collaborate with our US partners with whom we have and believe will maintain a very good relationship.”

Trump’s proclamation said Sierra Leone, which is now subject to partial restrictions, “has historically failed to accept back its removable nationals”.

Diosdado Cabello, Venezuelan interior minister and close aide of President Nicolas Maduro, said: “The truth is being in the United States is a big risk for anybody, not just for Venezuelans … They persecute our countrymen, our people for no reason.”

Trump’s proclamation stated: “Venezuela has historically refused to accept back its removable nationals.”

CNN —

A sweeping new travel ban on citizens from a dozen nations was announced by the White House on Wednesday, reviving a defining effort from the first Trump administration to crack down on entries from specific countries.

Trump said in a video posted Wednesday that new countries could be added to the travel ban as “threats emerge around the world.”

The 12 countries targeted – plus seven more, which face partial restrictions – are mostly nations with frosty, adversarial or outwardly antagonistic relations with Washington. Many are either failed states or in the throes of repressive rule, and some are governed by groups that took control after years of US involvement in their affairs.

“Frankly, we want to keep bad people out of our country,” Trump said Thursday. “The Biden administration allowed some horrendous people, and we’re getting them out one by one, we’re not stopping until we get them out.”

For all but four of the 19 countries hit with restrictions, the administration pointed to high rates of their nationals overstaying their visas after entering the US.

Visa overstays have received renewed scrutiny since the Boulder, Colorado, attack last weekend against a group campaigning in solidarity with the Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. The suspect in that attack was originally from Egypt, which was not on Wednesday’s travel ban list. He obtained a two-year work authorization that expired in March, a Homeland Security (DHS) official said.

Seven countries were included because the administration deemed they pose a “high level of risk” to the US: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

The travel ban does not target existing visa or green card holders, and it also features carve-outs for some visa categories and for people whose entry serves US interests.

Its impact will vary greatly from country to country; some nations only receive a few hundred nonimmigrant visas per year, while others have seen hundreds of thousands of people enter the US in the past decade.

Seven African countries

Travel to the US has been fully restricted for citizens from Chad, Sudan, Libya, Eritrea, the Republic of Congo, Somalia and Equatorial Guinea. Meanwhile, a partial restriction has been imposed on nationals from Burundi, Togo and Sierra Leone.

The US does not issue a high number of visas to most of those countries – according to State Department data, only a few hundred or a few thousand people from each were granted immigrant and nonimmigrant visas in 2023.

The White House said Somalia had been identified as a “terrorist safe haven,” led by a government that lacks “command and control of its territory.” This year, the US carried out airstrikes in Somalia against ISIS and affiliated targets, in a joint counterterrorism effort with the nation.

Relations with Sudan have soured; last month, the Trump administration said it would impose sanctions on the military-led Sudanese government after finding that it used chemical weapons last year during its ongoing war with a rival military faction. The US has been unable to broker a ceasefire to end the conflict that has raged on for two years, leaving tens of thousands dead.

The White House has also had a frosty relationship with Chad, which demanded the removal of American troops from its territory last year, as well as with Eritrea, whose military the Biden administration accused in 2023 of committing war crimes during a conflict in northern Ethiopia.

Similar reprimands have been made by the US State Department against state and non-state actors in Libya, which it accused of committing crimes against humanity.

Chad had one of the highest rates of visa overstays of any country included in the ban; around half of the people admitted to the US from the central African nation overstayed their visa in the 2023 financial year, according to the DHS, though the numbers of Chadians granted such visas was relatively small. The White House said Wednesday that Chad’s overstay rate is “unacceptable and indicates a blatant disregard for U.S. immigration laws.”

The President of Chad, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, said on Facebook that he had told his government to “act in accordance with the principles of reciprocity” by suspending visas to citizens of the United States.

“Chad has no planes to offer, no billions of dollars to give but Chad has his dignity and pride,” he added.

The African Union Commission said in a Thursday statement it was “concerned” about the impact of bans “on people-to-people ties, educational exchange, commercial engagement, and the broader diplomatic relations that have been carefully nurtured over decades.”

“While recognising the sovereign right of all nations to protect their borders and ensure the security of their citizens, the African Union Commission respectfully appeals to the United States to exercise this right in a manner that is balanced, evidence-based, and reflective of the long-standing partnership between the United States and Africa,” its statement read.

Afghanistan, Iran and Yemen

The ban targeted three Middle Eastern adversaries with which the US has limited or no diplomatic ties.

The US does not formally recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan’s official government. The militant group reclaimed power in 2021 amid a chaotic and deadly withdrawal of US forces under the Biden administration. Afghans who helped the US government during Washington’s two-decade involvement in the country are exempt from the ban; they fall under a Special Immigrant Visa program that has allocated more than 50,000 visas since 2009.

The Trump administration targeted Yemen’s Houthi rebels with airstrikes for several weeks earlier this year, in response to the group attacking ships and disrupting trade routes in the Red Sea. The Houthis control much of western Yemen, including the capital Sanaa.

A Houthi rebel walks next to a destroyed plane at the Sanaa International Airport last month, after Israeli strikes on the rebel-held capital Sanaa. Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images

Haiti, Cuba and Venezuela

Haiti has been in the grips of violent unrest for years. Gangs control at least 85% of its capital, Port-au-Prince, and have launched attacks in the country’s central region in recent years. The violence has left more than one million Haitians internally displaced.

Two other Latin American nations – Cuba and Venezuela – also face restrictions, though Trump stopped short of implementing a full ban. The move comes a week after the Supreme Court allowed Trump’s administration to suspend a Biden-era humanitarian parole program that let half a million people from the two countries, plus Nicaragua, temporarily live and work in the US each year.

Trump in March revoked temporary humanitarian parole for about 300,000 Cubans, amid a record number of arrivals of migrants from the Caribbean island. On Thursday, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla said the ban “has racist undertones” and “damages personal, professional, academic, and cultural exchanges between the two countries.”

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil Pinto called the travel ban issued against Venezuelan nationals an “operation of hate and stigmatization,” in a statement released Thursday.

Of all the countries targeted, the new restrictions may impact Venezuelans the most. More than 55,000 people from Venezuela received nonimmigrant visas to enter the US in 2023, and nearly 800,000 Venezuelans in total were granted such visas over the preceding decade, according to the State Department.

Myanmar and Laos

The White House said both Laos and Myanmar, also known as Burma, have failed to co-operate with the US regarding the return of their nationals.

Myanmar’s ruling military junta has spent the past four years waging a brutal civil war across the Southeast Asian country, sending columns of troops on bloody rampages, torching and bombing villages, massacring residents, jailing opponents and forcing young men and women to join the army.

The junta is headed by a widely reviled army chief who overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and installed himself as leader, and the nation was thrown into further turmoil by a devastating earthquake in March.

The US and Laos meanwhile have a complicated history, hampered by the US bombing of the country during its war in Vietnam. But relations have improved dramatically this century, and the US-Laos partnership is one of the most stable and productive of all 19 countries targeted by Wednesday’s ban.

Egypt not included

Egypt was spared inclusion in the travel ban, even though the restrictions were expedited after an Egyptian national was charged with attempted murder after the Molotov cocktail attack in Boulder, Colorado.

Egypt has long been a key US partner in the Middle East. Relations between Cairo and Washington date back to 1922, when Egypt gained independence from the United Kingdom, and have continued ever since.

According to the US embassy in Egypt, some 450 Egyptians travel to the United States annually on professional and academic exchange programs.

Trump told reporters Thursday that “Egypt has been a country that we deal with very closely. They have things under control. The countries that we have don’t have things under control.”

The Arab nation has also historically been the second biggest recipient of US military aid, following Israel. Since 1978, the US has contributed more than $50 billion in military assistance to Egypt, according to the American embassy, though some of this aid has been occasionally withheld on account of the country’s human rights record.

What to know about President Trump’s travel ban on nationals from 12 countries

What to know about Trump’s new travel ban

What to know about Trump’s new travel ban

Washington — President Trump signed a proclamation late Wednesday barring travelers and immigrants from 12 countries and restricting the entry of nationals from seven other nations.

With the move, the White House cited concerns about national security. The president said the recent attack at a march supporting Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, had “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,” Mr. Trump said.

Here’s what to know about the travel bans:

What are the travel ban countries?

With some exceptions, the proclamation bans the entry of foreigners from 12 countries who are seeking to come to the U.S. permanently as legal immigrants, as well as those with temporary visas, including tourists:

Afghanistan

Myanmar

Chad

The Republic of the Congo

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Haiti

Iran

Libya

Somalia

Sudan

Yemen

The proclamation also partially suspends the entry of travelers and immigrants from another seven countries. This restriction applies to legal immigrants seeking to move to the U.S. and certain temporary visa holders who hail from the following countries:

Burundi

Cuba

Laos

Sierra Leone

Togo

Turkmenistan

Venezuela

President Trump announced that the U.S. would bar entry to nationals from 12 countries, and restrict seven more, citing national security concerns. CBS News

When does the ban take effect?

The ban is set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, June 9.

Why were the countries selected?

On the first day of his second administration, Mr. Trump directed officials to perform a security review of high-risk regions and make recommendations for where immigration and travel restrictions should be imposed.

The president said the factors considered were “the largescale presence of terrorists, failure to cooperate on visa security, inability to verify travelers’ identities, inadequate record keeping of criminal histories and persistently high rates of illegal visa overstays, and other things.”

“Very simply, we cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen those who seek to enter the United States,” Mr. Trump said.

The president cited the recent attack in Boulder, where an Egyptian national was charged, as part of the justification for the bans. Egypt is not among the countries on the White House’s list. But the proclamation directed officials to assess the “adequacy” of Egypt’s vetting policies “in light of recent events.”

Are there exceptions to the new travel ban?

The president’s decree contains certain exemptions, including for U.S. permanent residents and the spouses and children of U.S. citizens who have “clear and convincing evidence of identity and family relationship.”

The proclamation also outlines exemptions for Afghans who assisted American forces and have special visas; diplomats; athletes coming to the U.S. for the World Cup, the Olympics and other major sporting events; dual nationals with a passport from a country not listed in the president’s decree; and for adoptions.

Mr. Trump said the list could be revised if countries make “material improvements,” and new countries could be added “as threats emerge around the world.”

Did Trump do this before?

The president’s actions follow a series of travel bans issued during his first administration that initially targeted predominantly Muslim countries. Like those orders, his latest proclamation could be subject to lawsuits, although the Supreme Court ultimately upheld the revised ban from his first term, which the White House noted in a fact sheet outlining his second-term bans.

The president touted his first-term travel bans in his video statement released Wednesday.

“In my first term, my powerful travel restrictions were one of our most successful policies, and they were a key part of preventing major foreign terror attacks on American soil,” Mr. Trump said.

In January 2017, Mr. Trump signed a travel ban restricting the entry of most citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The ban sparked widespread outcry, creating chaos at airports and prompting legal challenges, as opponents argued the ban was discriminatory.

Then in March 2017, Mr. Trump removed Iraq from the list and added Chad, Venezuela and North Korea. The president expanded the ban in 2020, adding immigration restrictions for nationals of Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan. Chad was later removed from the list.

The third iteration of the president’s first-term ban was upheld by the Supreme Court in the summer of 2018. At the time, conservative justices cited the president’s broad authority to restrict the entry of foreigners on national security grounds. When President Joe Biden took office, he scrapped that ban.

What to know about President Trump’s travel ban on nationals from 12 countries

What to know about Trump’s new travel ban

What to know about Trump’s new travel ban

President Trump on Wednesday signed a proclamation barring travelers and immigrants from a dozen countries and restricting the entry of nationals of another seven nations, citing concerns about national security.

Mr. Trump’s proclamation fully bans the entry of foreigners from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. With certain exemptions, Mr. Trump’s order bans citizens of those countries seeking to come to the U.S. permanently as legal immigrants, as well as temporary visa holders, like tourists.

The president also partially suspended the entry of travelers and immigrants from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. That part of his proclamation applies to all prospective immigrants from these countries with visas to settle in the U.S. permanently and certain temporary visa holders.

The ban is set to take effect at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, June 9.

Mr. Trump said the sweeping entry restrictions were necessary to address concerns related to terrorism in the countries listed in the order, inadequate vetting of the affected nationals and the lack of cooperation on deportations among some of the nations.

President Trump announced that the U.S. would bar entry to nationals from 12 countries, and restrict seven more, citing national security concerns. CBS News

“President Trump is fulfilling his promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors that want to come to our country and cause us harm. These commonsense restrictions are country-specific and include places that lack proper vetting, exhibit high visa overstay rates, or fail to share identity and threat information. President Trump will always act in the best of interest of the American people and their safety,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told CBS News.

Mr. Trump’s decree contains certain exemptions, including for U.S. permanent residents, the spouses and children of U.S. citizens who have “clear and convincing evidence of identity and family relationship,” Afghans who assisted American forces and have special visas, diplomats, athletes and dual nationals with a passport from a country not listed in his proclamation.

The announcement of the ban follows an attack Sunday in Boulder, Colorado, on marchers raising attention for Israelis taken hostage by Hamas. The suspect was identified by U.S. officials as an Egyptian national who had overstayed his tourist visa.

While Mr. Trump did not place any restrictions on the entry of Egyptian nationals, his proclamation directed officials to assess the “adequacy” of Egypt’s vetting policies, “in light of recent events.”

In a video statement released by the White House Wednesday night, Mr. Trump said the Boulder attack “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.”

He said the list could be revised if countries make material improvements, and new countries could be added as threats emerge.

Mr. Trump’s actions echo a series of travel bans issued during his first administration that initially targeted predominantly Muslim countries. Like those orders, his latest proclamation could be subject to lawsuits.

In the first month of his first term, January 2017, Mr. Trump signed a travel ban restricting the entry of most citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The move triggered widespread outcry, chaos at airports and legal challenges from advocates who argued the ban was discriminatory.

In March 2017, Mr. Trump removed Iraq from the list and added Chad, Venezuela and North Korea. In 2020, he expanded the ban, adding immigration restrictions for nationals of Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan. Chad was later removed from the list.

The third version of Mr. Trump’s first-term ban was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in the summer of 2018, with the conservative justices citing the president’s broad authority to restrict the entry of foreigners on national security grounds. The Biden administration scrapped that ban after it took office.