Trump’s Resurrected Travel Ban Goes Into Effect

People from 12 primarily African and Middle Eastern countries, including family members of refugees and people granted asylum, are barred from entering the U.S. starting Monday, after President Donald Trump signed the order into effect last week. The travel restrictions began after a weekend of protests in the Los Angeles area against immigration raids, which faced an intense and violent police response, including Trump’s deployment of National Guard members without California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s consent.

The new travel ban fully restricts nationals from Afghanistan, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Trump’s travel order also partially restricts the entry of nationals from seven other countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. Several of the 19 countries are on the International Rescue Committee’s 2025 Emergency Watchlist for being “most at risk of new or worsening humanitarian emergencies.”

“ We’re deeply concerned with this travel ban because it’ll separate families and cause profound chaos and trauma in our communities,” said Aaron Butler, managing attorney for the Georgia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “ It’s a continuation of the cruelty and the divisiveness that Trump and his cabinet have promoted.”

The Trump administration says it is aiming to target visitors who may pose a risk to national security or national interests, might overstay their visas or are from countries that the administration has determined have “inadequate identity-management or information-sharing policies.”

The proclamation includes exceptions for permanent residents, dual nationals and applicants for immediate family member visas and other specific visas, as well as those whose travel the secretary of state decides would be beneficial for U.S. national interests.

“We cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen,” Trump said in a video announcing the measure. 

Butler said CAIR is joining the American Civil Liberties Union and other partners in a legal fight against the ban, but did not provide details.

In 2017, Trump signed an executive order during his first presidential term banning nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from visiting the country for 90 days and prohibited any other refugees from coming into the country for 120 days. This action caused months of legal battles by civil and human rights organizations and was eventually taken to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Butler told Prism that the new travel ban is vastly different from the so-called Muslim ban: “It’s more expansive, and it regulates almost every facet of our immigration policy.” The ban isn’t just focused on who is able to visit the U.S.; it also takes aim at the various ways that people could enter the country, from student visa-holders to asylum-seekers, Butler said. 

Although the new ban does not revoke visas previously granted to people from the 19 countries, it will apply to applications still in progress as of Monday. 

“ Something that we want folks to be mindful of is that this ban isn’t simply to properly administer the issue of immigration; it’s not a cohesive plan,” Butler said. “It is a naked attack on individuals of color and practitioners of certain faiths, such as Islam. This ban is rooted in stark racism against Black and brown communities, and Islamophobia.” 

“We want it to be said out loud that we do not want to even operate under the assumption that there’s any aspect of this ban that is humane or constitutional,” he continued.

While Trump has claimed that this ban is an effort to “preserve national security and prevent terrorism in the U.S.,” his rhetoric has concerned many human rights organizations, as discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Arabs in the U.S. were the highest in 2024 since CAIR began compiling data in 1996. A large percentage of these crimes, according to the report, relate to Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians, which the U.S. heavily supplies. 

Trump’s announcement of the ban sparked a wave of condemnation from immigrant and civil rights groups across the country.

“ Although the travel ban doesn’t operate against people already in the United States, [it] is part of a larger effort by this administration to weaponize immigration laws against religious and racial minorities and against people with whom they disagree,” said Laurie Ball Cooper, the vice president of U.S. legal programs at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP). Ball Cooper added that unlike the 2017 ban, this one does not include a “hardship waiver” for urgent or humanitarian cases. 

IRAP, which was the first organization to be a named plaintiff and challenge the entirety of Trump’s 2017 ban, emphasized in a press release that it will be ready to “defend the rights of the families and communities harmed by this disastrous proclamation” and continue legal counseling for those in need.

Organizers said the travel ban was “ideologically motivated” and aimed at targeting dissent.

“Automatically banning anyone based on their nationality or vague allegations of ‘hostile attitudes’ to American culture or policies undermines our nation’s values,” a CAIR press release stated. 

The National Immigration Law Center, which focuses on policy advocacy and research, including an emphasis for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, said in a press release, “We are outraged by these actions, stand in solidarity with the communities that these bans will unjustly harm and call on people from all walks of life to push back forcefully against these discriminatory actions.”  

Several leaders from countries on the list have responded to the ban, including the Venezuelan government, which warned its citizens against traveling to the U.S, stating it is “a dangerous country where human rights of immigrants are nonexistent.” Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, also issued a response on June 5, stating Trump’s 2017 bans impacted “more than a hundred thousand Iranians.”

“Visa processing has never fully recovered,” Abdi said in the statement. “The impact of the ban will once again be felt by Americans who were denied the ability to see their loved ones at weddings, funerals or the birth of a child. It will once again be felt by Iranians who, despite significant hardship, secured admittance to U.S. universities and whose hopes will be dashed by an arbitrary denial. And it will be felt by countless individuals who were denied by Trump’s first bans, sat in administrative processing under Biden and could see four more long years of separation from their loved ones.”

It is unclear how the rules of the ban will immediately be implemented at areas of entry; however, according to the American Immigration Council, the ban has the potential to block at least 34,000 immigrant visas and over 125,000 nonimmigrant visas from being issued each year.  

“ We really want folks to stand up, if at all possible, and fight,” Butler said. “I want folks to know that organizations are fighting this in court. There is a collective presence against this.”