Explained: Trump travel ban 2.0 to affect 43 countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan

Trump said that he intended to protect American citizens  “from aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes.” The order required a report to be furnished to the White House within 60 days, that is, by next week.

Proposed travel restrictions

According to the draft list of recommendations accessed by The NYT, countries have been identified as belonging to one of three buckets.

1. 01

   RED LIST

   No one from this bucket would be allowed to travel to the US.

   Countries include Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

2. 02

   ORANGE LIST

   Travel from these countries would be restricted but not completely stopped. The entry of affluent business travellers might still be permitted, but that immigrant or tourist visas will not be issued. Citizens on this list would have to clear mandatory in-person interviews to receive a visa.

   Countries include Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Turkmenistan.

3. 03

   YELLOW LIST

   The Yellow List includes 22 countries that would be given 60 days to resolve perceived deficiencies. If these remain unaddressed these, countries in this list could be moved to either of the two above buckets.

   According to the NYT report, these issues could include:

   • failing to share information about incoming travellers with the US;
   • purportedly inadequate security practices for issuing passports; and
   • selling citizenship to people from banned countries, which could serve as a loophole around the restrictions.

   Countries on this list include Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe.

According to officials who spoke to The NYT, the lists had been developed by State department officials weeks ago. These are currently being reviewed by embassy officials, and security officials at other departments and intelligence agencies.

Further changes are likely once the White House vets the list.

How these travel bans are different from Trump’s first term

The restrictions now proposed are wide-ranging in their scope compared to the policies of the previous Trump administration.

Trump in his first term enacted the so-called “Muslim ban”, following his 2015 campaign proclamation declaring “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”

In what would become an evolving series of bans, Trump barred entry to a group of Muslim-majority countries, as well as low-income and non-White countries, particularly in Africa.

While court challenges staved these bans from being implemented, the Supreme Court in 2018 upheld a renewed iteration of the travel ban. These remained in place until President Biden took office in 2021. In one of his first acts, he rescinded these and returned to the system of individualised vetting for people from those countries.