The Trump administration is considering expanding its travel ban list to several more countries after the shooting of two National Guards members in Washington D.C. last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Monday.
“I just met with the President,” she wrote in a post on X. “I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies,” she announced, without providing any more details on which countries she was referring to.
“Our forefathers built this nation on blood, sweat, and the unyielding love of freedom—not for foreign invaders to slaughter our heroes, suck dry our hard-earned tax dollars, or snatch the benefits owed to AMERICANS,” Noem wrote. “WE DON’T WANT THEM. NOT ONE,” she added, in all caps.
Noem has not specified which countries the administration might include in its expansion of the travel ban. While Trump shared her post announcing their meeting on Monday on Truth Social, he also did not share any more details.
But we know that the Trump administration was already looking into expanding the June 2025 travel ban to 36 additional countries, 24 of which in sub-Saharan Africa, this summer, according to official material leaked to the media, as per the Associated Press.
The Washington Post, who first reported the news, wrote that the State Department had sent a diplomatic cable in June asking embassies and consulates in the 36 countries to see if their nations would be willing to improve their citizens’ travel documentation and address the status of their nationals who were in the U.S. illegally.
If these countries failed to take steps to address these concerns within 60 days, they risked being added to the travel ban, the document said.
These are the 36 countries identified in the memo:
- Angola
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Benin
- Bhutan
- Burkina Faso
- Cambodia
- Cameroon
- Cape Verde
- Democratic Republic of Congo
- Djibouti
- Dominica
- Ethiopia
- Egypt
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Ghana
- Ivory Coast
- Kyrgyzstan
- Liberia
- Malawi
- Mauritania
- Niger
- Nigeria
- St. Kitts and Nevis
- St. Lucia
- Sao Tome and Principe
- Senegal
- South Sudan
- Syria
- Tanzania
- Tonga
- Tuvalu
- Uganda
- Vanuatu
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News on Monday night that the president had “announced a travel ban on 19 third-world and failed state countries around the world” several months ago, suggesting some of these countries may be being considered now.
Trump said last week that he “will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover.”
Which Countries Are Included in the Current Travel Ban?
President Donald Trump introduced a new travel ban targeting 19 countries early this summer, in an escalation of his immigration crackdown in the U.S.
The ban, which focused on the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, was announced in a proclamation titled: “Restricting the entry of foreign nationals to protect the United States from foreign terrorists and other national security and public security threats.”
These are the 19 countries included in the June 2025 list. Seven are under a partial travel suspension, which means that travelers from these nations are not able to enter the U.S. with certain visas only.
- Afghanistan
- Burundi (partial ban only)
- Chad
- Cuba (partial ban only)
- Republic of Congo
- Eritrea
- Equatorial Guinea
- Laos (partial ban only)
- Myanmar
- Haiti
- Iran
- Libya
- Sierra Leone (partial ban only)
- Somalia
- Sudan
- Togo (partial ban only)
- Turkmenistan (partial ban only)
- Venezuela (partial ban only)
- Yemen
After the suspect in last week’s shooting of two West Virginia National Guard troops was identified as a 29-year-old Afghan national, Trump suggested he would widen his administration’s crackdown on immigration requests.
“This heinous assault was an act of evil, an act of hatred, and an act of terror,” he said in a five-minute address last week. “We’re not going to put up with these kinds of assaults on law and order by people who shouldn’t even be in our country. We must now reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under [President] Biden, and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here or add benefit to our country,” he added.
On Thursday, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), part of the Department of Homeland Security, announced in a post on X: “Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.”
USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow confirmed that all asylum decisions from Afghan nationals have been halted as the administration ensures “that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.” Every Green Card held by an Afghan national is also being re-examined, he said.
On Monday, USCIS wrote on the social media platform: “Nothing is off the table until every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”
Written with report from Newsweek, Washington Post
