By Our Correspondent
President Donald J. Trump signed a new proclamation on Tuesday imposing full entry bans on nationals from five additional countries while placing significant visa restrictions on over a dozen others, including Nigeria.
The action dramatically expands the scope of the administration’s travel restriction policy, reinstating and broadening a signature initiative from his first term.
The proclamation adds Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, and Syria to the list of nations whose citizens face a full suspension of entry to the United States for both immigrant and nonimmigrant purposes.
The order also imposes a full ban on all individuals traveling with documents issued by the Palestinian Authority.
In a move with wide-ranging impact, fifteen countries were newly subjected to partial restrictions. These limitations primarily target tourist (B-1/B-2), student (F), and exchange visitor (J) visas.
The most prominent nation on this list is Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and its largest economy. Other countries facing these new partial restrictions include Angola, Chad, The Gambia, Malawi, Senegal, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The White House justification for the new restrictions cites specific, data driven concerns for each country. For the nations facing full bans, reasons include terrorist activity, armed conflict, and a general lack of government control that prevents reliable vetting.
For those under partial restrictions, high visa overstay rates were a recurring theme. The administration cited a tourist visa overstay rate of 22.45% for Malawi and a student visa overstay rate of 38.79% for The Gambia.
For Nigeria, the justification pointed to the operational presence of Boko Haram and the Islamic State in certain regions, which “creates substantial screening and vetting difficulties,” alongside cited overstay rates.
The proclamation also introduces “Citizenship-by-Investment” programmes as a new category of concern, listing countries like Antigua and Barbuda for offering passports without residency requirements, which the administration argues can conceal identities.
Existing restrictions on the original list of countries from the 2017 order, such as Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen, remain in effect.
The policy maintains standard exceptions for lawful permanent residents, existing visa holders, and diplomats. It also notably lifts nonimmigrant visa restrictions on Turkmenistan, rewarding what the White House called “significant progress” in cooperation.
The move is positioned as a fulfillment of a campaign promise and is supported by references to the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the legal authority of the travel restrictions and will take effects in February 2026.
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