The Trump administration is preparing to expand the United States’ travel ban to nearly 30 additional countries, moving rapidly in the wake of last week’s fatal shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, according to CBS News. One service member was killed and the other critically wounded, prompting renewed calls within the White House for tougher immigration controls.
A senior official from the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that a finalized list of additional countries is expected soon. The U.S. currently enforces a full entry ban on travellers from 12 nations and imposes partial restrictions on seven others.
Federal authorities have identified the suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who previously worked alongside U.S. forces and the CIA before entering the United States in 2021. President Donald Trump and his allies have seized on the incident to criticise former President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, accusing his administration of allowing Lakanwal into the country.
In response to the attack, Trump has threatened a sweeping series of measures, including halting migration from select developing nations, revoking citizenship for certain naturalised migrants, and ending federal benefits for non-citizens. Although many of these proposals remain loosely defined, the planned expansion of the travel ban would represent one of the administration’s most decisive moves yet to restrict legal immigration.
Originally introduced during Trump’s first term, the travel ban sparked years of legal challenges before the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld it as being “squarely within the scope of Presidential authority.” Trump reinstated the policy earlier this year.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed on Monday that she met with the President to recommend the expanded ban, though she declined to specify how many additional countries would be affected. In a post on X, she wrote that 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.”
Currently, the countries under full travel restrictions include Afghanistan, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Partial restrictions apply to Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
Meanwhile, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has issued new guidance instructing officers to treat inclusion on the travel-ban list as a “significant negative factor” in immigration decisions. The State Department has also paused all visa issuances to Afghan nationals applying with Afghan passports, including those seeking Special Immigrant Visas.
Trump further declared last week that he intends to “permanently” pause migration from “all Third World Countries.” Even before the Washington attack, his administration had already hardened immigration policy by slashing the refugee cap, cancelling Temporary Protected Status for several groups, imposing a $100,000 application fee for H-1B visas, and revoking thousands of existing visas.
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