Deborah Akinyosoye
U.S. President Donald Trump has signed a proclamation on Wednesday evening banning citizens of 12 countries from entering the United States.
The countries affected are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Nationals from these countries will be “fully” restricted from entering the U.S., according to the proclamation.
Similarly, the entry of nationals of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be partially restricted.
The proclamation is effective on June 9, 2025 at 12:01 am EDT (5:01am Nigerian time).
Trump said the move was needed to protect the U.S. against “foreign terrorists” and other security threats.
“We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm,” Trump said in a video posted on X.
The U.S. President said the list could be revised and new countries could be added.
He said the countries subject to the most severe restrictions were determined to harbour a “large-scale presence of terrorists”.
He alleged others failed to cooperate on visa security and had an inability to verify travellers’ identities, inadequate record-keeping of criminal histories and high rates of visa overstays in the U.S..
“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,” Trump said.
Trump’s directive is part of an immigration crackdown that he launched at the start of his second term, pledging to restrict people from the Gaza Strip, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and “anywhere else that threatens our security”.
Trump issued an executive order on January 20 requiring intensified security vetting of any foreigners seeking admission to the U.S. to detect national security threats.
That order directed several cabinet members to submit a list of countries from which travel should be partly or fully suspended because their “vetting and screening information is so deficient.”
During his first term in office, Trump had announced a ban on travellers from seven countries, a policy that generated so much controversies before it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
However, former President Joe Biden, who succeeded Trump, repealed the ban in 2021, calling it “a stain on our national conscience.”
(NAN)