Trump’s No-Fly List: Countries, Waivers, and Court Challenges

President Trump’s second-term travel ban restricts entry to the United States for nationals of 39 countries and for anyone traveling on Palestinian Authority documents. Nineteen countries face a full suspension of all immigrant and nonimmigrant visas; 20 face partial restrictions targeting immigrant visas and common visitor, student, and exchange categories. The current rules took effect January 1, 2026 under Proclamation 10998.¹

The Full Ban: 19 Countries and the Palestinian Authority

Nationals of these countries cannot enter the United States on any visa, immigrant or nonimmigrant:

Afghanistan
Burkina Faso
Burma
Chad
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Haiti
Iran
Laos
Libya
Mali
Niger
Republic of the Congo
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Sudan
Sudan
Syria
Yemen

Holders of travel documents issued or endorsed by the Palestinian Authority are also fully barred. The administration cited the presence of U.S.-designated terrorist groups in the West Bank and Gaza and what it called the PA’s “weak or nonexistent control” over those territories.²

The Partial Ban: 20 Countries

Nationals of these countries cannot receive immigrant visas or the most common nonimmigrant visas: B-1/B-2 visitor, F and M student, and J exchange visitor. Consular officers are also directed to shorten the validity of any other nonimmigrant visas issued to these nationals.

Angola
Antigua and Barbuda
Benin
Burundi
Cote d’Ivoire
Cuba
Dominica
Gabon
The Gambia
Malawi
Mauritania
Nigeria
Senegal
Tanzania
Togo
Tonga
Turkmenistan (immigrant visas only)
Venezuela
Zambia
Zimbabwe

Turkmenistan is the one country to earn a partial rollback so far. Its nonimmigrant restrictions were lifted after the administration found “significant progress” in identity management and information sharing, but its immigrant visa suspension stays in place.²

Who the Ban Does and Does Not Apply To

The restrictions apply only to foreign nationals who were outside the United States and did not already hold a valid visa as of January 1, 2026. Existing visas were not revoked.³ If you hold a valid U.S. visa issued before that date, the proclamation does not cancel it.

Several categories of travelers are exempt regardless of nationality:

Lawful permanent residents of the United States.
Dual nationals traveling on a passport from a country that is not on the restricted list.
Diplomatic and international organization visa holders in the A-1, A-2, C-2, C-3, G-1 through G-4, and NATO-1 through NATO-6 categories.
Athletes, coaches, and support staff traveling for the 2026 World Cup, the 2028 Olympics, or other major sporting events designated by the Secretary of State.
Special Immigrant Visa holders who worked for the U.S. government under 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(27)(D).
Iranian religious and ethnic minorities facing persecution who qualify for immigrant visas.

One boundary worth being explicit about: earlier categorical exceptions for immediate-family immigrant visas, adoptions, and Afghan Special Immigrant Visas were eliminated by Proclamation 10998. A U.S. citizen with a spouse or child in a fully or partially banned country cannot rely on the family relationship alone; they must pursue an individual waiver.⁴

Case-by-Case Waivers

The Secretary of State, the Attorney General, or the Secretary of Homeland Security may grant a waiver when they determine that an individual’s travel serves a “critical United States national interest.” The proclamation does not publish a formal application procedure, does not set a timeline, and requires inter-agency coordination for each case.² Critics of the first-term ban raised concerns that similar waiver provisions functioned poorly in practice, and Justice Stephen Breyer flagged the issue in his 2018 dissent in Trump v. Hawaii.⁵

Why These Countries Were Chosen

The administration assessed countries against several overlapping criteria, drawing on cabinet officials and the intelligence community:⁶

Deficient vetting and information sharing, including unreliable civil documents or refusal to share law enforcement data and passport records.
High visa overstay rates. Sierra Leone was cited with a 35.83% student and exchange visitor overstay rate and Benin with 36.77%.
Refusal to accept deportees, a status the government labels “recalcitrant.”
Terrorist activity and weak government control over territory.
Citizenship-by-investment programs that allow individuals to acquire a passport without residency. This rationale was applied specifically to Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica.

The overstay methodology has been contested. The Brennan Center for Justice said the administration used percentage thresholds rather than absolute numbers, which produced a list weighted toward countries with small U.S. visa populations while leaving off countries like the United Kingdom and Canada whose total overstays are far higher.⁷ Tonga was placed on the partial ban list on the basis of 152 suspected tourist visa overstays out of 2,358 expected departures.⁴

The Separate 75-Country Immigrant Visa Pause

A related but distinct policy is easy to confuse with the travel ban. Effective January 21, 2026, the State Department paused immigrant visa issuance for nationals of 75 countries as part of a “public charge” review focused on financial self-sufficiency. That list is broader than the 39-country ban and includes Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Iraq, Jamaica, Pakistan, and Russia, among others. Applicants can still submit paperwork and attend interviews during the pause, but visas are not being issued.⁸⁹

Effect on Families, Refugees, and Applicants Already in the U.S.

Nigeria illustrates the scale. Excluding the pandemic years, Nigerian nationals received roughly 128,000 immigrant and nonimmigrant visas per year over the prior decade. According to the American Immigration Council, “nearly all of these visas will now be restricted.”⁴

The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program was suspended on January 20, 2025, and the fiscal year 2026 refugee cap was set at 7,500, described as the lowest in the program’s history, with slots primarily allocated to Afrikaners from South Africa. The administration reads the travel ban as barring refugee admissions from the listed nations, which include several of the world’s largest refugee-producing countries.¹⁰

Nationals of the 39 travel-ban countries who were already inside the United States were separately affected by a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services hold on final adjudication of green cards, work permits, and citizenship petitions.⁴ That hold was struck down in court, discussed below.

Additional financial pressure came from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, which imposed a $250 visa bond on all nonimmigrant visas and a $5,000 fee on anyone apprehended at the border without authorization, and barred refugees and asylum recipients from Medicaid, SNAP, CHIP, and Affordable Care Act subsidies.¹¹¹⁰

Court Challenges

On June 5, 2026, Chief U.S. District Judge John McConnell of the District of Rhode Island ruled that the USCIS blanket hold on asylum, work permit, green card, and citizenship applications for nationals of the 39 travel-ban countries was unlawful. He found that the agency “violated the very immigration laws that Congress has charged it with administering” and threw immigrants “into indeterminate legal limbo” based on “the happenstance of their birth.” The court also called the policies “arbitrary and capricious” and motivated by “unlawful bigotry.”¹²¹³

The ruling took effect immediately and required USCIS to resume processing affected applications. It does not touch the underlying entry ban or the State Department visa pauses. As of early June 2026, the administration had not appealed to the First Circuit but retained the option to seek an emergency stay.¹³

A separate lawsuit, CLINIC v. Rubio (Case No. 1:26-cv-00858), was filed February 2, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs, a coalition including the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, African Communities Together, and 11 individual visa applicants, challenge the State Department’s freeze on immigrant visa processing for the 75 countries. They argue the blanket suspension violates federal law requiring individual, case-by-case adjudication and constitutes discrimination based on race and national origin.¹⁴¹⁵ The case was active as of June 2026.

The List Can Still Change

The Secretary of State is authorized to recommend adjustments to the country list every 180 days, beginning September 2, 2025. Countries can be added, moved between the full and partial tiers, or, as with Turkmenistan, have restrictions eased if the administration finds improved cooperation on vetting.¹⁶ Anyone with plans that depend on these rules should confirm the current status of their country and visa category with the U.S. Department of State before traveling or filing.

1
NAFSA. Proclamation Travel Ban Effective January 1, 2026
2
The White House. Restricting and Limiting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the Security of the United States
3
U.S. Department of State. Suspension of Visa Issuance to Foreign Nationals
4
American Immigration Council. President Trump Expands His Travel Ban: What You Need to Know
5
SCOTUSblog. Opinion Analysis: Divided Court Upholds Trump Travel Ban
6
The White House. Fact Sheet: President Trump Further Restricts and Limits Entry of Foreign Nationals
7
Brennan Center for Justice. Trump’s Entry Bans Aren’t Really About National Security
8
U.S. Department of State. Immigrant Visa Processing Updates for Nationalities at High Risk of Public Benefits Usage
9
KFF. Potential Impact of the Federal Pause on Immigrant Visas From 75 Countries on the U.S. Health Care Workforce
10
International Rescue Committee. How Have Trump Policies Impacted Refugees
11
American Immigration Council. The Big Beautiful Bill: Immigration and Border Security
12
The Guardian. Ruling Against Trump Travel Ban Immigrants
13
American Immigration Council. Court Blocks USCIS Immigration Pause for 39 Countries
14
Western Center on Law and Poverty. CLINIC v. Rubio
15
Center for Constitutional Rights. Questions and Answers About 75-Country Visa Ban Lawsuit
16
American Immigration Council. Trump 2025 Travel Ban