Trump Broadens US Travel Ban List to Include Palestine, Syria, and Six More Countries
The White House cited security concerns stemming from the countries’ chronic shortcomings in vetting travelers
US President Donald Trump has extended the United States’ travel ban list, adding eight additional nations—including Syria and the Palestinian Authority. The new restrictions are scheduled to take effect on January 1.
This move is part of a wider initiative to tighten entry rules for foreign nationals whose countries have “chronic vetting deficiencies” that make it challenging for U.S. authorities to assess if travelers are admissible, the White House stated in a Tuesday proclamation.
Such gaps could be exploited to “threaten United States national security,” the proclamation added.
The expanded travel ban prohibits entry to citizens of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, Syria, Laos, and Sierra Leone, along with individuals carrying documents issued by the Palestinian Authority.
Syria was added to the list just days after two U.S. soldiers and a civilian were killed in the country by a suspected Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) gunman. The ban was implemented even as Trump had been pursuing rapprochement with Damascus’ new government—one that took power last year after jihadist groups overthrew long-serving president Bashar Assad.
Per the proclamation, the decision will not apply to individuals who have already been granted asylum in the United States.
The revised U.S. travel ban follows an earlier proclamation from June 2025 that restricted entry for citizens from 19 countries due to national security reasons.
Trump has recently criticized immigrants from Somalia—one of the countries on the list—following the emergence of a fraud scandal involving the Somali diaspora in Minnesota. “We’re gonna go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country,” he remarked last month, urging the African immigrants to return home.
In early December, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated she had urged Trump to impose “a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”
Her comments came on the heels of the arrest of an Afghan asylum seeker who was charged with first-degree murder for shooting two U.S. National Guard members in Washington last month; one of the victims later died at a local hospital.