President Donald Trump’s travel ban clamping down on travellers from nineteen countries effective on 9 June 2025, setting up potential confrontations at airports and in courtrooms across the country. The ban aims to “protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors,” following a recent attack in Boulder, Colorado.
The ban bars citizens from twelve countries and imposes restrictions on nationals from seven others. The move marks a dramatic escalation in the president’s immigration crackdown, reviving a hardline tactic used during his first term that caused chaos at airports and drew legal challenges. This ban is broader in scope, targeting more countries, and is also expected to face lawsuits.
From the Caribbean and Central America, this includes Haiti with partial restrictions on Cuba and Venezuela. The policy increases migratory pressure on the Dominican Republic, which shares a 391 km border with Haiti. Exceptions will be made, such as for the upcoming World Cup in the US.
The countries affected could be removed from the ban if “material improvements” are made, Trump said, and more could be added still if new “threats emerge around the world.” Most on the list have tense relationships with the United States, and several are facing their own internal turmoil, whether civil war or repressive rule.
Gang violence has had a grip on Haiti for several years, with more than 80 percent of the country’s capital controlled by gangs and more than a million Haitians internally displaced. The United Nations has backed a multinational security mission to the small Caribbean island, but so far, the violence has been difficult to contain. Climate change and natural disasters have further weakened the country’s stability. In February, Trump announced that he would be ending the temporary protected status of 500,000 Haitians living in the United States by August.
The United States granted 13,051 visas to travellers from Haiti.
Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela
These seven countries face a partial travel suspension under the ban, meaning travellers from these nations will not be able to enter the United States with certain visas. Visa overstays are cited as the main concern in most of these cases.
However, Trump’s proclamation singled out Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism” and accused Venezuela of refusing to accept deportees from the United States and lacking a strong central authority to issue passports.
Latest news: There are plans to impose new restrictions on 36 additional countries in an expanded crackdown.
Trump’s administration is weighing a dramatic expansion of its travel ban, targeting citizens from 36 more countries across Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, and the Pacific.
A memo signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio (dated Saturday) and outlines sweeping new demands on identity verification and visa enforcement. Countries have 60 days to comply or risk full or partial entry bans.
Critics warn the move revives discriminatory tactics, echoing the 2017 Muslim ban Trump once imposed.
List of countries facing possible US travel ban:
Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
While former President Joe Biden revoked Trump’s original travel bans during his term, Trump vowed to revive and expand them.
On Inauguration Day this year, the White House issued an executive order instructing agencies to identify countries with “deficient vetting and screening” processes—laying the groundwork for this latest action.
Trump has publicly promised the policy would return “bigger than before.”