The United States is considering restricting entry to citizens of an additional 36 countries in what would be a significant expansion of the travel ban announced by the Trump administration early this month, according to a State Department memo reviewed by The Washington Post.
Among the new list of countries that could face visa bans or other restrictions are 25 African nations, including significant U.S. partners such as Egypt and Djibouti, plus countries in the Caribbean, Central Asia and several Pacific Island nations.
A State Department spokesperson said the agency would not comment on internal deliberations or communications. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Such a move would mark another escalation in the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown on immigration.
Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The United States also had partially restricted the entry of travelers from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela under that order.
Democrats and other critics of the Trump administration have described its efforts to issue blanket travel bans on selected nations as xenophobic and bigoted, pointing to President Donald Trump’s efforts to block travel from Muslim-majority nations in his first term and the high number of African and Caribbean nations targeted during this term.
Early in his first term, Trump attempted to restrict travel from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Libya. The initial version of the ban caused confusion and chaos at airports. It faced numerous legal challenges until the Supreme Court upheld the third version of it in June 2018.
While the travel ban was rescinded under the Biden administration, Trump repeatedly pledged to reinstate it on the campaign trail, stating it would be “bigger than before.”
On Inauguration Day, the White House issued an executive order calling on U.S. agencies, including the State Department, to look for “countries throughout the world 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.”
