President Donald Trump has issued a presidential proclamation based on Executive Order 13780, changing the list of countries from where admission of immigrants and non-immigrants will be restricted. The countries on the immigration and travel restrictions list are now Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. Chad, North Korea, and Venezuela have been added to the list and Sudan has been removed from the list (Iraq was on the list under the first Executive Order 13769 issued in January, but not on the list under Executive Order 13780, and was not on the list discussed in this presidential proclamation). The new restrictions on nationals from Chad and North Korea apply broadly but the new restrictions on Venezuela only apply to certain government officials and their families. There also have been changes on the breadth of restrictions on immigration and travel from the countries that remained on the list.
The proclamation describes the review of immigration and national security issues in each country by the Departments of Homeland Security and State, as well as national intelligence agencies, about which countries should be on the list. The proclamation clarifies that existing approved visas will still be honored and that the restrictions on the new countries would become effective on October 18, 2017.
Based on this latest presidential action, the U.S. Supreme Court has cancelled the oral argument that had been scheduled for October 10 on the U.S. government’s appeals of two federal court of appeals injunctions against the implementation of Executive Order 13780. Instead, the Court requested briefing on how this presidential proclamation impacts those injunctions and also requested briefing on whether the injunctions related to section of Executive Order 13780 that temporarily suspended the admission of refugees for 120 days, would be moot by the end of October. Notably, the presidential proclamation does not address the ban on refugee admissions. These supplemental briefs are due October 5.
Ignatius Bau 