The White House announced on December 16 that it would expand its travel ban to include seven additional countries and add new restrictions to individuals traveling from fifteen others.
The Donald Trump administration said the expanded travel ban would now also include Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, and Syria. It also noted that it would no longer provide visas to those traveling on documents issued by the Palestinian Authority (PA). The countries facing additional travel restrictions include: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Ivory Coast, Dominica, Gabon, Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Laos and Sierra Leone, which previously faced partial travel restrictions, were added to the full travel ban list. The White House said that Turkmenistan would face fewer restrictions after it had “engaged productively with the United States and demonstrated significant progress” since the original ban in June. The administration cited national security concerns when it instituted that ban, which barred citizens of twelve countries and imposed restrictions on nationals of seven others.
Trump had first indicated a potential expansion of the travel ban on November 28, when he threatened to “permanently pause” all migration from “third world countries.” This rhetoric followed a shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DC. The primary suspect in the shooting, which left one of the guardsmen dead, is an Afghan national who obtained asylum following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.