Possible Expansion of Travel Ban

On June 14, 2025 news outlets began reporting that an internal Department of State memo sent that day to consular posts indicated that 36 more countries will be given 60 days to meet the Trump administration's benchmarks and requirements or face either a partial or full entry ban. See Trump administration considers adding 36 countries to travel ban list, Adam Taylor, The Washington Post, June 14, 2025.

The Post article lists the following "countries facing scrutiny in the memo: Angola; Antigua and Barbuda; Benin; Bhutan; Burkina Faso; Cabo Verde; Cambodia; Cameroon; Democratic Republic of Congo; Djibouti; Dominica; Ethiopia; Egypt; Gabon; Gambia; Ghana; Ivory Coast; Kyrgyzstan; Liberia; Malawi; Mauritania; Niger; Nigeria; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; Sao Tome and Principe; Senegal; South Sudan; Syria; Tanzania; Tonga; Tuvalu; Uganda; Vanuatu; Zambia; and Zimbabwe."

The Washington Post article says that the memo gives countries 60 days to meet new requirements, and to provide action plan for doing so by 8 a.m. on Wednesday, June 18, 2025, but the article goes on to say "It was not immediately clear when the proposed travel restrictions would be enforced if the demands were not met."

Comparison to March 14, 2025 leaked list and the June 4, 2025 proclamation

Many of the countries identified in the reported June 14, 2025 memo were listed on the leaked cable list first reported on by The New York Times on March 14, 2025 (see Draft List for New Travel Ban Proposes Trump Target 43 Countries, Charlie Savage and Ken Bensinger, The New York Times, March 14, 2025). Almost all were labeled "yellow" at that time, meaning they would have 60 days to come into compliance before any ban would take effect. Of these countries, Nigeria is the biggest sender of students (19,685 per the February 2025 SEVIS by the Numbers).

There are almost a dozen countries that are new in the sense that they have not been mentioned before in either the March 14, 2025 cable or in Presidential Proclamation 10949 of June 4, 2025. Those "new" countries are: Cote d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, Zimbabwe. Of these, Ghana sends the most students to the U.S. (6,766 per the February 2025 SEVIS by the Numbers).

*Note that Egypt was mentioned, but not included, in Presidential Proclamation 10949 of June 4, 2025, which established a "full" travel ban on 12 countries and a "partial" travel ban on 7 countries, effective June 9, 2025. Section 5(c) of that proclamation flagged Egypt "in light of recent events" by saying the "Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence, shall provide me an update to the review of the practices and procedures of Egypt to confirm the adequacy of its current screening and vetting capabilities."

Countries in the March 14, 2025 NY Times article that that were not included in the June 4, 2025 proclamation or the June 14, 2025 list reported by the Wash Post include: Belarus, Mali, North Korea, Pakistan, and Russia.

Table

For visualization, this table presents the countries listed in the March 14, 2025 New York Times article, the June 4, 2025 Presidential Proclamation, and the June 14, 2025 Washington Post article. Only the countries bolded in List 2 (Proclamation 10949) are subject to a current travel ban. See NAFSA's page for information on the current complete or partial travel bans on those countries.