President Donald Trump’s proclamation Wednesday restricting entry into the United States for nationals from a patchwork of 19 countries revives one of his most controversial policies from his first term and targets many of the same countries.
Beginning Monday, the directive bans entry for nationals from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also institutes partial bans and visa restrictions for Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Trump instituted similar travel restrictions during his first term and even targeted several of the same countries, including Iran, Libya and Venezuela.
About 139,000 visas were issued for visitors from the 19 countries during the 2023 fiscal year, data from the State Department shows. Visitors from Venezuela received the most visas.
Across all of the countries, tourism and business visas were issued most commonly.
Trump’s proclamation cited security and terrorism risks as the reason behind some of the restrictions, and it specifically accused visitors from several of the countries of staying past their visas’ expiration dates. But data from the Department of Homeland Security shows that while several of the countries had high overstay rates during the 2023 fiscal year, the actual numbers of people were low.
Eritrea, for instance, had the second-highest overstay rate, but the total was just over 200, a small fraction of the number of overstayers from Mexico, India or Brazil.
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