Trump expands travel ban, adding 5 more countries and imposing new limits on others

WASHINGTON– The Trump administration is expanding its travel ban to five additional countries and imposing new limits on others.

Tuesday’s move is part of ongoing efforts to tighten U.S. travel and immigration standards. The move follows the arrest of an Afghan national suspected of shooting two National Guard soldiers over the Thanksgiving weekend.

In June, President Donald Trump announced that citizens of 12 countries would be barred from traveling to the United States and those of seven other countries would be subject to restrictions. This decision resurrected a landmark policy from his first term.

At the time, the ban covered Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, and it strengthened restrictions on visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

On Tuesday, the Republican administration announced it was expanding the list of countries whose citizens are barred from entering the United States to include Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan and Syria. The administration also strictly restricted the movement of people with travel documents issued by the Palestinian Authority.

Fifteen additional countries are also added to the list of countries subject to partial restrictions: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Ivory Coast, Dominica, Gabon, Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The Trump administration said in its announcement of the expanded travel ban that many countries from which it restricted travel had “widespread corruption, fraudulent or unreliable civil records and criminal records” that made it difficult to vet their citizens for travel to the United States. She also said some countries had high rates of people overstaying their visas, refusing to take back citizens the U.S. wanted to deport, or having a “general lack of stability and government control,” making monitoring difficult.

“The restrictions and limitations imposed by the Proclamation are necessary to prevent the entry of foreign nationals about whom the United States does not have sufficient information to assess the risks they pose, obtain the cooperation of foreign governments, enforce our immigration laws, and advance other important foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism objectives,” read the White House proclamation announcing the changes.

The Afghan man accused of shooting two National Guard soldiers near the White House has pleaded not guilty to murder and assault charges.