(The Hill) -- President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a proclamation banning travel into the United States for individuals from a dozen countries, citing national security concerns.
The proclamation, which echoes a travel ban Trump instituted in his first term, fully restricts the entry of nationals from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
It also partially restricts entry into the U.S. for nationals coming from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
The proclamation makes exceptions for nationals from all 19 of those countries who are lawful permanent residents of the United States or existing visa holders and individuals "whose entry serves U.S. national interests.
"President Trump is fulfilling his promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors that want to come to our country and cause us harm," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson posted on X.
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"These commonsense restrictions are country-specific and include places that lack proper vetting, exhibit high visa overstay rates, or fail to share identity and threat information," Jackson added.
The travel ban proclamation comes after Trump, on his first day in office, signed an executive order that called for increased vetting and screening of migrants entering the United States, citing national security concerns.
The president has taken numerous actions in his first four months in office to crack down on both the flow of migrants at the southern border and legal pathways into the United States.
Trump, in his first term, implemented a travel ban that, after legal challenges, banned the entry of nationals from several Muslim-majority countries. The ban was revoked by then-President Joe Biden in 2021.
