A new list of countries that may face visa bans or other restrictions includes 25 African nations, as well as countries from the Caribbean, Central Asia, and several Pacific island nations.
Citizens of Angola, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe may be prohibited from entering the United States, according to a list of 36 countries to which U.S. President Donald Trump intends to apply restrictions, as reported by The Washington Post.
The new list includes 25 African countries that may face visa bans or other entry restrictions, along with nations from the Caribbean, Central Asia, and several Pacific island states, according to a State Department memo obtained and published by The Washington Post.
Signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the document was sent on Saturday to American diplomats working with the 36 affected countries.
The memo states that the governments of the targeted countries will have 60 days to comply with new requirements set by the State Department.
According to The Washington Post, the countries were given a deadline until Wednesday to submit an initial action plan for meeting the requirements.
Countries identified in the memo that may face full or partial travel bans include: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Ethiopia, Egypt, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The memo identified several criteria that, in the view of the U.S. government, were not being met by these states.
Some countries lacked “a competent and cooperative central government authority to produce reliable identity documents or other civil documents,” or suffered from “widespread government fraud,” according to the State Department’s assessment.
Others had a large number of citizens who overstayed their U.S. visas, the memo noted.
The document also emphasized that these concerns could be mitigated if a government is willing to accept citizens from third countries who are deported from the United States.
These 36 countries may be added to the 12 others whose citizens were already subject to U.S. entry restrictions earlier this month: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
Additionally, according to news agency Lusa, the Trump administration has also partially restricted entry of travelers from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela—part of an escalating crackdown on immigration.
Forbes África Lusofona , 17/06/2025
