Biden Administration Revokes Trump Administration “Travel Bans”
On January 20, 2021 President Biden issued a Proclamation on Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to The United States. This Proclamation revokes the following Executive Orders issued by the Trump Administration, also known as the “Travel Bans”:
*Executive Order 13780 of March 6, 2017: clarifications on countries identified in Executive Order 13769 of January 27, 2017 that places visa/travel restrictions on Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, also referred to as the “Muslim Ban”, and new limitations on refugees to the U.S.
*Proclamation 9645 of September 24, 2017: addition of countries to the previous travel restriction, including Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Venezuela, and Yemen; additional restrictions on Iraq, Syria, and Somalia.
*Proclamation 9723 of April 10, 2018: removed the Chad from the travel restriction list.
*Proclamation 9983 of January 31, 2020: immigrant and certain other non-immigrant visa limitations of additional countries due to incomplete sharing of security data resulted in the following countries facing travel restrictions, including Burma/Union of Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania.
The January 20, 2021 Proclamation from the Biden Administration directs the U.S. Department of State to resume visa processing for individuals affected by the bans and to develop plans to reconsider immigrant visa denials issued under the bans. All visa applications continue to be subject to security check reviews, including “administrative processing”, and do not guarantee visa issuance as all applications are considered individually on their merits under U.S. policies.
The full text of the January 20, 2021 Proclamation can be found here.
The U.S. Department of State has also posted updates concerning relevant executive orders and proclamations on its website, here.
