President Trump Plans New Travel Ban, Details to Come

The White House announced that it will institute new restrictions on travel from several countries to the United States, replacing the travel ban that was put into place earlier this year and will expire on Sunday.  Unlike that ban, these new restrictions will have no time limitations.

The White House has not stated how many countries would be affected, and particularly whether that list of countries would include the six Muslim-majority countries included in the original travel ban: Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and Iran.  However, the Wall Street Journal has reported that the new list will likely include 8 or 9 countries in total.

The White House has also not expressed what the restrictions would look like, leaving questions about whether there would be total bans on travel from certain countries, bars on temporary travel, exclusions of refugees, or something else.  The Trump Administration simply issued a statement, stating that it “will ensure we only admit those who can be properly vetted and will not pose a threat to national security or public safety.”  The president himself, in response to the terrorist attacks on the London Underground earlier this week, also recently tweeted that the “travel ban into the United States should be far larger, tougher and more specific-but stupidly, that would not be politically correct!” It is unclear how these new travel restrictions will affect the current, expiring travel ban, which is scheduled to be debated before the U.S. Supreme Court on October 10.

The NMM Immigration Blog will continue to provide updates as the Administration releases the new travel restrictions. If you have questions about this post or other immigration topics, please contact me at wcmenard@nmmlaw.com.