The Trump Administration is reportedly considering a new travel ban for citizens of up to 43 countries—a potential escalation of Trump’s first term travel ban which primarily targeted Muslim-majority countries.
An internal memo, obtained and reviewed first by the New York Times and then by Reuters, suggests that the Trump Administration has included new countries in a draft of a 2.0 travel ban. Per the memo, the countries on the list would be sorted into three different tiers: red, orange, and yellow.
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Citizens from the 11 countries in the “red” category would reportedly be flatly barred from entering the United States. The 11 countries listed include Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. The Times reported, though, that this list was formed by the State Department a few weeks ago and changes could well be made.
Citizens from the countries in the “orange” category—which includes Haiti, Russia, and Pakistan, would have their visas heavily restricted. Per the Times‘ reporting, citizens traveling to the U.S. from these countries would be subjected to “mandatory in-person interviews” in order to receive a visa. The third category includes countries in the “yellow” group—meaning they have 60 days to address concerns from the Administration, or else each country risks being moved up to the other categories. Countries reportedly listed under this category include Cambodia, Zimbabwe, and The Republic of Congo.
The White House has yet to publicly comment on the reported memo. TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.
Mention of a potential new travel ban by the Trump Administration comes shortly after the President was asked during a press briefing on Wednesday, March 12, about what countries might be targeted on his 2.0 list. He shut down the question from the reporter, saying: “Wouldn’t that be a stupid thing for me to say?”
Trump made promises on his campaign trail, stating his intention to restore the travel ban which caught much attention during its initial introduction during his first term. His signing of an Executive Order titled “Protecting The United States From Foreign Terrorists And Other National Security And Public Safety Threats” on Jan. 20 only served to reaffirm his intentions.
Here’s a look back at the history of Trump’s travel ban and what he has shared about his plans moving forward.
Trump’s first term travel ban
In January 2017, a week after Trump entered office, Trump signed Executive Order 13769, titled “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States”—later referred to as the “Muslim travel ban,” on account of the fact it largely targeted Muslim-majority nations. The ban barred entry of Syrian refugees and temporarily suspended the entry of individuals from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
The action triggered chaos at airports and sparked protests across the country. Judges in several states blocked the initial ban soon after it went into place in 2017, claiming that it targeted Muslim countries and discriminated against people for their nationality without justification, violating U.S. immigration law.
Eventually the Supreme Court permitted a rewritten notion in which citizens from Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen continued to be subject to the ban. They later upheld the ban in 2018. These countries could potentially be at risk again, should a 2.0 list be finalized.
When former President Joe Biden entered office in 2021, he repealed the ban, calling it “a stain on our national conscience” and “inconsistent with our long history of welcoming people of all faiths and no faith at all.”
“[T]hey have separated loved ones, inflicting pain that will ripple for years to come. They are just plain wrong,” Biden said in the Executive Order announcing the end to the ban.
Trump promised to reinstate the travel ban during his campaign
While on the campaign trail in 2024, Trump vowed to reinstate his 2017 travel ban several times.
In July, at a campaign rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Trump told the crowd that he would “restore the travel ban, suspend refugee admissions, stop the resettlement, and keep the terrorists the hell out of our country” and that he would do so on “day one” of his presidency.
In a later campaign event in Washington, Trump said he would ban people from “terrorist infested” areas and would “seal our borders.”
“Remember the famous travel ban? We didn’t take people from certain areas of the world,” Trump said at the event in September 2024. “We’re not taking them from infested countries.”
Trump’s Executive Order on “vetting” countries
Trump did not reintroduce his travel ban on “day one” as promised, but on the first day of his second term, he did sign the Executive Order titled “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and other National Security and Public Safety Threats.”
Within the Executive Order, Trump called for the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence to submit a report “identifying countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.” A deadline of 60 days was given.
If the timeline remains the same, this report is due to the President by next week. Although he may well have already received it.
The Executive Order also called for the report to identify how many people from said countries had entered the United States since Biden was inaugurated as President.
This was just one Executive Order in a slew of recent motions signed by Trump that look to drastically shift and harden the United States’ immigration and visitation policy.
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