From Monday, citizens from 12 countries – Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – will be banned from travelling to the US.
Those from another seven countries – Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela – will be subject to a partial ban.
For most countries included on the list, the White House cites a mixture of visa overstay rates and political instability.
The sole reason mentioned for the bans affecting Congo-Brazzaville, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Burundi, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo and Turkmenistan, for example, are the percentage of people overstaying their US visa.
Other reasons frequently cited include nations previously not accepting “removable nationals”, criticism of the authorities which issue passports in the country, or an inability to access criminal records of migrants.
Security concerns are also cited in the proclamation. The White House accuses Iran and Cuba of being a “state sponsor of terrorism”, says there is a “historical terrorist presence” in Libya, and calls Somalia “a terrorist safe haven”.
Meanwhile for Haiti, the proclamation says “hundreds of thousands of illegal Haitian aliens flooded into the United States during the Biden administration”, which it says “harms American communities”.