Trump Expands Travel Ban and Restrictions to 20 More Countries

People from Syria, South Sudan and those with documents issued by the Palestinian Authority are included in the latest restrictions. More than 35 countries are now under U.S. travel restrictions.

President Trump on Tuesday expanded travel restrictions to include 20 more countries, just weeks after he promised to do so when authorities arrested an Afghan national in the shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington.

The revised policy, which takes effect on Jan. 1, fully blocks travel for individuals from five additional countries — Syria, South Sudan, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso — and also for people with documents issued by the Palestinian Authority. The Trump administration also added partial travel restrictions for individuals from 15 additional countries, predominantly in Africa. With the expansion, there are now more than 35 countries with U.S. travel restrictions.

Mr. Trump first instituted a travel ban on 12 countries, including Afghanistan, in June and vowed after the shooting last month to “permanently pause migration from all third world countries.” Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said she recommended to Mr. Trump “a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”

The partial travel restrictions apply to people from Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Ivory Coast, Dominica, Gabon, Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The new policy also applies to spouses, children and parents of U.S. citizens as well as to Afghan Special Immigrant visas, which were set up for people who had helped the U.S. military and government during the war in Afghanistan. The policy also bars siblings and adult children of U.S. citizens as well as international students.

Taken together, Mr. Trump’s new policy substantially expands his crackdown on legal forms of immigration, with the administration either fully or partly limiting travel from nearly 20 percent of the countries in the world. The revised policy also greatly expands the restrictions on individuals from countries with partial bans.

“This expanded proclamation really slams the door on nearly all noncitizens from the listed countries,” said Doug Rand, a former top official at the Department of Homeland Security in the Biden administration.

Mr. Trump and his top advisers have argued that the travel restrictions are necessary to protect national security, and the president’s allies applauded the expansion on Tuesday.

“This is common sense: if you don’t know who someone is, or if there are risks associated with their presence in the United States, you shouldn’t let them in,” Gene Hamilton, the president of America First Legal, a Trump-aligned group, wrote on X.

But critics of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy said the moves were the latest manifestation of the president’s disdain for immigrants, particularly those from nations in Africa and the Middle East.

“We shouldn’t be surprised that President Trump is continuing to push our immigration system back toward an era when the United States enforced racial quotas,” said Andrea R. Flores, a former White House immigration official in the Obama and Biden administrations. “He has consistently singled out certain nationalities as scapegoats, and immigration law grants him too much discretion to discriminate based on his preferences.”

Beyond the travel restrictions, the ban could have major ramifications for nationals of those countries who are already in the United States. Earlier this month, the United States blocked immigration applications from immigrants from the initial 12 travel ban countries and seven others with partial restrictions, causing panic across the country as citizenship ceremonies were canceled as a result.

Mr. Trump first set out to enact a travel ban in his first term, though it faced legal hurdles. He resurrected the policy in June after an Egyptian man in Colorado was charged with carrying out an attack on a group honoring hostages being held in Gaza.

After authorities arrested and charged Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan national, with shooting two National Guard troops, one of whom died, near the White House last month, the Trump administration moved swiftly to tighten its immigration policies. Mr. Lakanwal, who had worked with C.I.A.-backed units in Afghanistan, entered the United States in 2021 under a program established by the Biden administration to give quick access to Afghan allies after the country fell under Taliban control.

In the days after the shooting, the Trump administration paused all asylum decisions for migrants currently in the United States; reviewed the green cards that allowed people from 19 countries, mostly in the Middle East or Africa, to live and work permanently in the United States; reassessed the asylum approvals issued during the Biden administration; indefinitely halted immigration applications filed by Afghan nationals; and barred Afghans from entering the country.

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