United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order imposing a full travel ban on people from 12 countries and restricting the citizens of seven other countries, the White House said.
The banned countries include Afghanistan, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
In addition to the ban, which was announced on Wednesday and takes effect on Monday, there will be heightened restrictions on people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
“I must act to protect the national security and national interest of the United States and its people,” Trump said in his order.
In a video message released by the White House, Trump said the recent attack on a pro-Israel rally in Boulder, Colorado had “underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted”.
The president claimed there were “millions and millions of these illegals who should not be in our country”.
“We will not let what happened in Europe happen to America,” he said, adding, “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”.
“We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm.”
“We cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen… That is why today I am signing a new executive order placing travel restrictions on countries including Yemen, Somalia, Haiti, Libya, and numerous others.” –President Trump pic.twitter.com/ER7nGM4TO2
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 4, 2025
During his first term in 2017, Trump issued an executive order banning travel to the US by citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
People from the named countries were either barred from getting on their flights to the US or detained at US airports after they landed. Those affected included tourists, people visiting friends and family, students and faculty members at US institutions, and businesspeople.
The order, often referred to as the “Muslim ban” or the “travel ban”, was reworked amid legal challenges until a version was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018, which banned categories of travellers and immigrants from Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Syria and Libya, plus North Korean and some Venezuelan government officials and their families.
Trump defended his initial travel ban on national security grounds, arguing that it was aimed at protecting the US and claiming that it was not anti-Muslim. However, Trump had called for a travel ban on Muslims during his first campaign for the White House.
Moves to bar foreign students from Harvard
Trump also signed an executive order on Wednesday to suspend the entry of foreign nationals seeking to study or participate in programmes at Harvard, accusing one of the US’s most prestigious universities of having “a history of concerning foreign ties and radicalism”.
The order directs the US State Department to “consider revoking” existing academic or exchange visas of any current Harvard students “who meet the Proclamation’s criteria”.
Last month, the US State Department ordered all its consular missions overseas to begin additional vetting of visa applicants looking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose, according to an internal cable seen by Reuters.
Harvard has accused the US administration of retaliating against it for refusing to accede to Trump’s demands to control the school’s governance, curriculum and the ideology of its faculty and students.
The visa restrictions follow earlier moves to freeze billions of dollars in grants and other funding to Harvard, end the university’s tax-exempt status and open an investigation into whether it discriminated against white, Asian, male or straight employees or job applicants.
Last month, the administration revoked Harvard’s ability to enrol foreign students. While that move was blocked by a federal court in Boston, Trump’s latest order invokes a different legal authority, the Associated Press news agency reports.