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Worldwide Caution

Caution October 19, 2023

Due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests, the Department of State advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution.  U.S. citizens should:

  • Stay alert in locations frequented by tourists.
  • Enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program ( STEP ) to receive information and alerts and make it easier to locate you in an emergency overseas.
  • Follow the Department of State on Facebook and Twitter .

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  • International

Supreme Court upholds travel ban

By Meg Wagner , Brian Ries and Veronica Rocha , CNN

These are the countries affected by the Trump travel ban

issued a travel ban

This is the third version of the travel ban. It was issued in September -- after previous bans had ricocheted through the courts -- and restricts entry from the following seven countries to varying degrees:

  • North Korea

(Chad was originally on the list but it was recently removed after having met baseline security requirements.)

Lawyer who represented other side in travel ban case warns Trump against "attacking our Constitution"

TASOS KATOPODIS/AFP/Getty Images

Supreme Court lawyer Neal Katyal, who represented the state of Hawaii and other challengers in the Supreme Court case involving Trump's travel ban, said he's disappointed with the decision.

He also warned Trump not to take the ruling as "approval to continue attacking our Constitution."

Katyal argued the case before the Supreme Court in April .

During the arguments, he said Trump was claiming limitless authority to exclude anyone he wished and tried to emphasize that Trump's unilateral move to restrict nationals from Muslim-majority countries had usurped congressional power over immigration, in a breach of the terms of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act.

Republican senator: "This is not a Muslim ban"

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, just told CNN the Supreme Court's ruling is a big win for Trump, and disputed critics who said that the ban is not targeting Muslims, arguing it’s been mischaracterized by critics as a Muslim ban.

"This is part of the Never Trump resistance to mischaracterize this as being a Muslim ban, this is not a Muslim ban," he said.

Travel industry: White House must make it clear that "legitimate business and leisure travelers" are welcome here

U.S. Travel Association Executive Vice President for Public Affairs Jonathan Grella just sent CNN the following statement, calling on the White House to make clear that "legitimate business and leisure travelers" are welcome in the US despite the ban.

He also said that the "economic stakes" are too high for "the welcome message" to be overlooked.

Here's his full statement:

“Now that the U.S. court system has set guidelines for the president’s executive orders on immigration, we are hopeful that a coherent and durable set of policies can be put into place by the administration."Today's decision should enable the White House to move on to a new messaging phase: making it clear that keeping bad actors out remains a priority, but making it equally clear that legitimate business and leisure travelers are as welcome and desired as ever in the United States."The economic stakes around strong and healthy international travel are too high—and speak too squarely to the president’s priorities of growing exports, jobs, and the GDP—for the welcome message not to become a featured part of the administration’s calculus.”

Amnesty International: Travel ban "has no place in a country that claims to value human rights"

Human rights organization Amnesty International just sent us its reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling on Trump's travel ban.

Ryan Mace, Grassroots Advocacy & Refugee Specialist at Amnesty International USA, called it a "hateful policy" that "has no place in a country that claims to value human rights."

Here's the full statement :

“This hateful policy is a catastrophe all around – not only for those who simply want to travel, work, or study here in the States, but for those seeking safety from violence as well. While this decision doesn’t address the separate and equally harmful ban on refugees, it cruelly traps people in conflict-afflicted countries and prevents them from seeking safety in the U.S. or being reunited with family. Some of the people banned from this policy are fleeing conflicts that the United States has had a direct hand in creating or perpetuating, as is the case in Yemen and Syria. In those cases especially we are essentially lighting a house on fire and locking the escape door shut. This ban, and the anti-Muslim sentiment in which it originated, has no place in a country that claims to value human rights .” 

ACLU: History "will judge today's decision harshly"

The American Civil Liberties Union called the Supreme Court's decision to uphold President Trump's travel ban "wrong," adding that the move allows "official racism and xenophobia to continue."

The group added that history "will judge today's decision harshly."

Here's the tweet:

Trump tweets about travel ban ruling: "Wow!"

President Trump just issued his first public reaction to the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the third version of his travel ban.

He announced the news and added, "Wow."

At least White House official tells CNN the President sees this as “vindication.”

Democratic senator: Just because it's constitutional, "doesn't mean that it's right"

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, slammed Trump's travel ban in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, calling the measure "discriminatory and counterproductive."

Here's the rest of his statement:

“In the coming weeks, I plan to introduce legislation to make clear that in the United States, we will not tolerate discrimination based on religion or nationality, and I invite everyone who treasures our American values to join me in defending them. The President’s travel ban is not only discriminatory and counterproductive; it stands in direct contrast to the principles embedded in our Constitution and our founders’ vision of a nation where all people are free to worship as they choose. With time, we have made our union more perfect by fighting discrimination in all of its forms, but the Court’s decision today demonstrates that we have a long way to go before we live up to our highest ideals.”

Blumenthal on travel ban ruling: "This opinion is by no means the end of this story"

CNN

CNN's Manu Raju caught up with Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, to get his reaction to the Supreme Court ruling.

Here's what the Senator said:

"This nation needs better legislation that will protect us, but uphold our essential liberties. I’m going to review the opinion and see where we should go at this point. Clearly this opinion is by no means the end of this story . It is no solution to either our security or our constitutional issues."
"There is no question, there has to be legislation to protect our essential liberties, our image around the world, which is very much at risk and at stake here. The Congress now has work to do. It cannot simply allow the courts to determine or the president what our future is in this area . There now needs to be legislation. The onus is on us to protect liberties that may be jeopardized by rash or impulsive presidential action and we have an obligation to legislate."

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With Scant Information on Omicron, Biden Turned to Travel Ban to Buy Time

“Here’s what it does: It gives us time,” President Biden said of the flight restrictions. He called the new variant a cause for concern, not panic.

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Biden Urges Vaccinations Amid Omicron Variant Concerns

President biden called the new omicron coronavirus variant “a cause for concern, not a cause for panic,” and urged americans to get vaccinations and booster shots. the variant has not yet been detected in the united states..

The very day the World Health Organization identified the new variant, I took immediate steps to restrict travel from countries in Southern Africa. But while we have that travel restrictions can slow the speed of Omicron, it cannot prevent it. But here’s what it does. It gives us time, gives us time to take more actions, to move quicker, to make sure people understand you have to get your vaccine. You have to get the shot. You have to get the booster. The — sooner or later, we’re going to see cases of this new variant here in the United States. We’ll have to face this new threat just as we faced those that come before it. This variant is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic. We have the best vaccine in the world, the best medicines, the best scientists, and we’re learning more every single day. And we’ll fight this variant with scientific and knowledgeable actions and speed, not chaos and confusion. In the event — hopefully unlikely — that updated vaccinations or boosters are needed to respond to this new variant, we will accelerate their development and deployment with every available tool. I want to reiterate: Dr. Fauci believes that the current vaccines provide at least some protection against the new variant and the boosters strengthen that protection, significantly. We do not yet believe that additional measures will be needed, but so that we are prepared if needed, my team is already working with officials at Pfizer and Moderna and Johnson & Johnson to develop contingency plans for vaccines or boosters if needed.

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By Michael D. Shear and Sheryl Stolberg

WASHINGTON — By the time President Biden was briefed on the emergence of a fast-moving new Covid variant on the morning after Thanksgiving, he had a choice to make — and little information to base it on.

In a secure conference call from a vacation compound overlooking Nantucket Harbor, the president listened as his health advisers told him that the highly mutated virus was far more concerning than other variants they had seen in recent months. It spread twice as fast as the dominant Delta variant and had the potential to evade treatments and vaccines .

Banning travel from southern Africa, where the variant was discovered last week, would not stop the coronavirus from finding its way to the United States, the officials told Mr. Biden, even though Britain and several other countries had announced similar restrictions. But the measures might slow the spread.

During the 30-minute briefing, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the president’s top medical adviser for the coronavirus, and other health officials acknowledged how little they knew about the threat, according to White House officials and others familiar with the discussion. But they concluded that even a potentially marginal benefit from a travel ban was worth the criticism that it was likely to generate from the affected countries, the officials said. Better to be criticized for something you do, rather than for something you don’t do.

A few hours later, as Mr. Biden ate lunch with his extended family at the Nantucket Tap Room, the White House issued a statement in his name announcing a ban on travel from eight countries in southern Africa , prompting outrage among leaders in that region — and from global health experts who questioned the benefits of the move, saying it was tantamount to punishing South Africa for being transparent about the virus.

“Here’s what it does: It gives us time. Gives us time to take more actions to move quicker,” Mr. Biden said at the White House on Monday morning as he called the new variant, named Omicron , “a cause for concern, not a cause for panic.”

The sudden arrival of Omicron represented a jarring, here-we-go-again moment for a weary and politically divided country after nearly two years of battling the pandemic. It also underscored the difficult position the president is in as he seeks to respond aggressively to yet another public health threat.

The scramble among White House and public health officials on Thursday night and Friday morning was a reminder that the United States remains vulnerable to a virus that is still spreading, unchecked through largely unvaccinated parts of the world — a problem that is well beyond the control of any global leader. And it once again highlighted the political dangers for Mr. Biden and his party if a new wave of infections derails the country’s economic recovery and return to some semblance of normalcy.

The president on Monday sought to reassure the public, ruling out a return to the kinds of nationwide “shutdowns and lockdowns” that ground economic and social life to a halt last year. Instead, he said, the administration would combat the new variant “with more widespread vaccinations, boosters, testing and more.”

Mr. Biden’s call for more vaccinations came as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday altered its guidance and urged all adults to get a booster shot when they are eligible, six months after their initial Pfizer or Moderna doses or two months after their initial Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The agency had previously urged eligible people over 50 and those living in long-term care facilities to get a booster shot, but stopped short of saying that everyone should do so.

In addition, Pfizer and BioNTech will ask federal regulators this week to authorize their booster shot for 16- and 17-year-olds , according to people familiar with the companies’ plan.

Scientists were working to make sure current tests could accurately detect the new variant, officials said; the administration was working with manufacturers to modify their vaccines and booster shots, should that prove necessary, Mr. Biden said.

issued a travel ban

White House officials said that the president would outline a detailed strategy for fighting the coronavirus this winter when he visits the National Institutes of Health on Thursday.

But significant risks remain, including to the nation’s economy.

Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, plans to tell lawmakers on Tuesday that Omicron creates more economic uncertainty and the possibility of further inflation, according to a copy of his prepared remarks.

“Greater concerns about the virus could reduce people’s willingness to work in person, which would slow progress in the labor market and intensify supply-chain disruptions ,” Mr. Powell plans to say.

In his remarks on Monday, Mr. Biden promised that he was “sparing no effort, removing all roadblocks to keep the American people safe.”

That pledge came as some Republicans seized on the existence of another variant to attack the president. The Republican National Committee issued a statement saying that “Biden failed to shut down the virus as he promised.” Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas, who served as President Donald J. Trump’s White House physician, suggested that Omicron was created by liberals eager to impose further Covid restrictions.

White House officials dismissed the political criticism. Natalie Quillian, the deputy Covid-19 response coordinator, said the potential dangers from the new variant were serious enough to prompt a flurry of meetings among officials from multiple agencies, calls with pharmaceutical companies and urgent messages to health officials in other countries.

“There was a sense of concern, a sense that this felt different from other variants,” Ms. Quillian said. “This had enough of the markers to differentiate itself in the level of concern we felt. We sort of kicked into action Thursday night and Friday.”

The new variant upended the Thanksgiving holiday for administration officials and top scientists, who had scattered across the country for celebrations.

The variant was identified by South African scientists on Thursday afternoon, as many U.S. officials were sitting down to dinner. Shortly before midnight, Dr. David A. Kessler, the chief science officer for the government’s coronavirus response, reached out to a South African partnership, which sent back a genomic sequencing report on the variant.

Dr. Fauci and Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the C.D.C. director, were in contact with their counterparts in South Africa late on Thanksgiving Day. Jeff Zients, the president’s Covid-19 response coordinator, and others spent most of the night making calls.

By Friday morning, it appeared that Mr. Zients was leaning toward travel restrictions, according to one person familiar with the deliberations. At 10:30, Mr. Zients, Dr. Fauci and other top scientists were briefed by the South Africans, including Tulio de Oliveira, a geneticist who helped identify the Omicron variant .

After Mr. Biden made the decision to impose the travel ban, State Department officials told diplomats in the affected countries, and administration officials began calling airlines to inform them of the change. From the beginning of the discussion late Thursday, it took about eight hours to issue the presidential directive.

“Even if we bought ourselves a little bit of time to understand this more, that was valuable,” Ms. Quillian said. “And this is an action that’s not permanent.”

For now, the travel restrictions are the president’s primary response.

Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota who advised Mr. Biden during the presidential transition, said that while travel bans could help officials gain “situational awareness,” they offered only temporary benefits. He said he would not be surprised if the restrictions were soon lifted.

“It’s like in a crime scene,” Dr. Osterholm said. “When you go to a crime scene, what do the police do right away? They lock everything down so they can figure out what’s going on. But that doesn’t mean they are going to keep things locked down for the rest of the day or the rest of the week.”

But several public health experts expressed outrage at the bans, saying they punished South Africa for doing what the United States expected of other nations: tracking the coronavirus, identifying worrisome variants and making the information public.

“Travel restrictions are exactly the wrong incentive to give to countries when you want them to share data,” said Gregg Gonsalves, an activist and associate professor of epidemiology at Yale University. “You want them to be on the lookout for new variants, and you shut your borders?”

Mr. Oliveira warned on Twitter on Monday that because planes were no longer flying to South Africa, his lab might run out of some of the chemical components known as reagents that are needed to test for the variant.

“It will be ‘evil’ if we cannot answer the questions that the world needs about #Omicron due to the travel ban!” he wrote .

The new variant has again raised criticism that the Biden administration is not doing enough to vaccinate the rest of the world, though that effort is complicated by vaccine hesitancy in other nations.

South Africa has fully vaccinated only 24 percent of its population, according to the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. It has a better vaccination rate than most countries on the continent , but has asked vaccine makers to stop sending doses because of trouble getting shots into arms, in part because of distribution bottlenecks and hesitancy.

Elsewhere in Africa, the vaccination rate is much lower; in some countries, even health care workers have had trouble getting their shots. The W.H.O. reported last week that only 27 percent of health workers in Africa had been fully vaccinated.

The Biden administration has pledged to donate more than a billion doses to other nations; so far it has shipped 275 million doses to 110 countries.

“Now we need the rest of the world to step up as well,” the president said.

But activists and some global health experts said the administration needed to move faster, arguing that vaccine inequities were the reason for the emergence of the variant.

African officials on Monday criticized the global effort to provide vaccines to their countries, saying in a joint statement that their low vaccination rates were the result of a lack of consistent, reliable doses.

“The majority of the donations to date have been ad hoc, provided with little notice and short shelf lives,” they said in the statement. “This has made it extremely challenging for countries to plan vaccination campaigns and increase absorptive capacity.”

“This trend must change,” they added.

Michael D. Shear is a veteran White House correspondent and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who was a member of team that won the Public Service Medal for Covid coverage in 2020. He is the co-author of “Border Wars: Inside Trump's Assault on Immigration.” More about Michael D. Shear

Places the U.S. Government Warns Not to Travel Right Now

You may want to reconsider traveling to these countries right now.

Do Not Travel to These Countries

Man walking through an airport with his suitcase

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Crime, civil unrest and terrorism are common risk factors for countries that end up on the State Department's "Do Not Travel" advisory list.

In 2024, tourism across the globe is “well on track” to return to pre-pandemic levels, according to projections by UN Tourism.

Global conflicts and natural disasters , ranging from a series of coups across Africa to catastrophic earthquakes in the Middle East affected international travel patterns throughout 2023. Still, international tourist arrivals reached 87% of pre-pandemic levels in 2023, according to estimates by UN Tourism .

In January 2024 alone, about 4.6 million U.S. citizens left the country for international destinations, 17% higher than the same month in 2019, according to the International Trade Administration . But some destinations warrant more caution than others.

On Oct. 19, 2023, following the outbreak of war between Israel and Gaza and flaring tensions in the region, the U.S. State Department issued a worldwide caution advisory due to “increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests.” Prior to this update, the most recent worldwide caution advisory was issued in 2022 after a U.S. strike killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s successor as leader of Al Qaeda, causing “a higher potential for anti-American violence.” The worldwide caution advisory remains in effect.

The U.S. State Department also issues individual travel advisory levels for more than 200 countries globally, continually updating them based on a variety of risk indicators such as health, terrorism and civil unrest. Travel advisory levels range from Level 1, which means exercise normal precautions, to Level 4, which means do not travel there.

About 10% of countries – 19 total – have a Level 4: “Do Not Travel” advisory as of Mar. 4. In Level 4 countries, the U.S. government may have “very limited ability” to step in should travelers’ safety or security be at risk, according to the State Department. Crime, civil unrest, kidnapping and terrorism are common risk factors associated with Level 4 countries.

So far in 2024, the State Department made changes to the existing Level 4 advisories for Myanmar, Iran and Gaza, and moved Niger and Lebanon off of the Level 4 list.

Places With a Level 4 Travel Advisory

These are the primary areas the U.S. government says not to travel to right now, in alphabetical order:

Jump to Place: Afghanistan Belarus Burkina Faso Central African Republic Myanmar (formerly Burma) Gaza Haiti Iran Iraq Libya Mali Mexico North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) Russia Somalia South Sudan Sudan Syria Ukraine Venezuela Yemen

Afghanistan: The Central Asian country is wrestling with “terrorism, risk of wrongful detention, kidnapping and crime,” according to the State Department. U.S. citizens are specifically at risk for wrongful detention and kidnapping. In 2022, the government reinstituted public floggings and executions, and women’s rights are disappearing under Taliban control. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul halted operations in August 2021. Since the Taliban took control , many forms of international aid have been halted . Meanwhile, in 2023, some of the year’s deadliest earthquakes killed more than 2,400 in Afghanistan while the country continues to face a years-long extreme drought.

Belarus: Belarus, which shares a western border with Russia and a southern border with Ukraine, has been flagged for “Belarusian authorities’ continued facilitation of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the buildup of Russian military forces in Belarus, the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, the potential of civil unrest, the risk of detention, and the Embassy’s limited ability to assist U.S. citizens residing in or traveling to Belarus.” The U.S. Embassy in Minsk halted operations in February 2022.

Burkina Faso: Terrorism, crime and kidnapping are plaguing this West African nation. Terrorist attacks may target hotels, restaurants and schools with little to no warning, and the East and Sahel regions of the country are under a state of emergency. In late November 2023, hundreds died in clashes between state security forces and rebels near the country’s border with Mali. In June, more than 2 million people in Burkina Faso were displaced due to “violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.”

Central African Republic: While there have not been specific incidents of U.S. citizens targeted with violence or crime, violent crime and sudden closure of roads and borders is common. The advisory states that “Embassy Bangui’s limited capacity to provide support to U.S. citizens, crime, civil unrest, and kidnapping” is a factor in its assessment. Recent data from UNICEF suggests the country has the worst drinking water accessibility of all countries in 2022.

Myanmar (Formerly Burma): Armed conflict and civil unrest are the primary reasons to not travel to this Southeast Asian country, which experienced a military coup in early 2021. Limited health care resources, wrongful detentions and “areas with land mines and unexploded ordnance” are also listed as risk factors. After Ukraine and Israel, Myanmar had the highest conflict-related death toll in 2023.

Gaza : Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization as designated by the State Department, controls much of the Gaza Strip, which shares borders with both Israel and Egypt. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas fighters broke across the border into Israel, killing hundreds of civilians and soldiers in a brazen attack that stunned Israelis. On Oct. 10, Israel hit the Gaza Strip with “the fiercest air strikes in its 75-year conflict” according to Reuters . The conflict has since escalated into war between Israel and Hamas, with regular Israeli airstrikes leading to extensive civilian casualties in Gaza. As of mid-December, nearly 85% of Gaza’s population were displaced from their homes, according to UN estimates . The region continues to face shortages of food , water, electricity and medical supplies , with conditions deemed “far beyond a humanitarian crisis.” The State Department warns of terrorism and armed conflict within Gaza’s borders.

Haiti: In July 2023, the Department of State ordered all non-emergency U.S. government personnel and family members to leave the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince in response to the increased risk of kidnapping and violent crime in the country , as well as armed conflict between gangs and police. The travel advisory states that cases of kidnapping “often involve ransom negotiations and U.S. citizen victims have been physically harmed during kidnappings.” The travel advisory also states that “U.S. citizens in Haiti should depart Haiti as soon as possible” given “the current security situation and infrastructure challenges.” A series of gang attacks in late September 2023 caused thousands to flee their homes, and many aid groups have been forced to cut or suspend operations amid escalating violence in recent months.

Iran: Terrorism, kidnapping and civil unrest are risk factors for all travelers to Iran, while U.S. citizens are specifically at risk for “arbitrary arrest.” U.S.-Iranian nationals such as students, journalists and business travelers have been arrested on charges of espionage and threatening national security. Executions in Iran rose sharply between 2021 and 2022, bringing the country’s total to nearly 580 people over the year, according to a report by Amnesty International released in May 2023.

Iraq: The State Department cites “terrorism, kidnapping, armed conflict [and] civil unrest” as cause for the country’s Level 4 distinction. Iraq’s northern borders, and its border with Syria, are especially dangerous. Since the escalation of conflict in neighboring Israel in October, there has been an increase in attacks against Iraqi military bases, which host U.S. troops and other international forces. In October 2023, non-emergency U.S. government personnel and eligible family members were ordered to leave the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

Libya: Following the end of its dictatorship over a decade ago, Libya has been wrought with internal conflict between armed groups in the East and West. Armed conflict, civil unrest, crime, kidnapping and terrorism are all risk factors. U.S. citizens have been targets of kidnapping for ransom, with terrorists targeting hotels and airports frequented by Westerners. The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli halted operations in 2014. In mid-September 2023, floods, which some say were intensified by climate change , killed thousands in eastern Libya. Clashes between armed factions escalated across the country in the latter half of 2023, including in the capital city of Tripoli and in Benghazi.

Mali: After experiencing military coups in 2020 and 2021, crime, terrorism and kidnapping are all prevalent threats in this West African landlocked nation. In July 2022, non-emergency U.S. government employees and their families were ordered to leave the country due to higher risk of terrorist activity. A U.N. report in August 2023 said that military groups in the country, including both Mali security forces and possibly Russian Wagner mercenaries, were spreading terror through the use of violence against women and human rights abuses. Democratic elections were supposed to occur in February 2024, but Mali’s military junta postponed the plans indefinitely. In December, the U.N. officially ended a decade-long peacekeeping presence in the country, which had been among the agency’s deadliest missions, with hundreds of the mission personnel killed since 2013.

Mexico: Each state in Mexico is assessed separately for travel advisory levels. Six of the 32 states in Mexico are designated as Level 4: Colima, Guerrero, Michoacan, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas and Zacatecas. Crime and kidnapping are listed as the primary risk factors throughout the country. Nearly 112,000 people were missing across the country as of October, a number the U.N. has called “alarming.”

North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea): U.S. passports are not valid for travel “to, in, or through” this country, home to one of the world's longest-running dynastic dictatorships. The travel advisory states that the Level 4 distinction is due to “the continuing serious risk of arrest and long-term detention of U.S. nationals.” In July 2023, a U.S. soldier fled across the border into North Korea, where he is believed to be in North Korean custody, the first American detained in the North in nearly five years. He was returned to U.S. custody in September 2023.

Russia: The travel advisory for Russia cites its invasion of Ukraine , harassment of U.S. citizens by Russian government officials and arbitrary law enforcement as a few of the reasons for the Level 4 designation. Chechnya and Mount Elbrus are specifically listed as Level 4 regions. Terrorism, civil unrest, health, kidnapping and wrongful detention are all noted as risks.

Russia Invades Ukraine: A Timeline

TOPSHOT - Black smoke rises from a military airport in Chuguyev near Kharkiv  on February 24, 2022. - Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine today with explosions heard soon after across the country and its foreign minister warning a "full-scale invasion" was underway. (Photo by Aris Messinis / AFP) (Photo by ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Somalia: A severe drought resulting from five failed rainy seasons in a row killed 43,000 people in 2022, and caused a famine amid conflict with Islamist insurgents . Violent crime is common throughout Somalia , pirates frequent its coast off the Horn of Africa, and medical facilities, where they exist, have limited capacity. Crime, terrorism, civil unrest, health and kidnapping are all risk factors. In January 2024, some passengers aboard a U.N.-contracted helicopter were taken hostage by al-Shabaab militants after the vehicle crashed in central Somalia.

South Sudan: Crime, kidnapping and armed conflict are the primary risk factors for South Sudan, which separated from Sudan in 2011, making it the world’s newest country . Weapons are readily available, and travelers have been victims of sexual assault and armed robbery.

Sudan: The U.S. evacuated its embassy in Khartoum in April 2023, and the country closed its airspace due to the ongoing conflict in the country, only permitting humanitarian aid and evacuation efforts. Fighting has escalated in the region between two warring generals seeking to gain control after a military coup in 2021 ousted the country’s prime minister. Civil unrest is the primary risk factor for Africa’s third largest country by area. Crime, terrorism, kidnapping and armed conflict are also noted. The International Criminal Court began investigating alleged war crimes and violence against African ethnic groups in the country in 2023. Millions have fled their homes due to conflict, and the U.N. has said its efforts to provide aid have been hindered by a lack of support, safety and resources. As recently as December 2023, the United Nations warned of catastrophic famine , with millions of children at-risk for malnutrition .

Syria: The advisory states that “No part of Syria is safe from violence,” with terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, armed conflict and risk of unjust detention all potential risk factors. U.S. citizens are often a target for kidnappings and detention. The U.S. Embassy in Damascus halted operations in 2012. Fighting in neighboring Israel has escalated since October, and the conflict has spilled over into Syria, where the U.S. has carried out air strikes following drone and rocket attacks against American troops in Syria and Iraq, triggered by the Israel-Hamas war.

Ukraine: Russian setbacks in their invasion of Ukraine buoyed hopes in Ukraine in 2023. However, Ukraine is a Level 4 country due to Russia’s invasion, with crime and civil unrest also noted as risk factors. The country’s forces shot down two Russian fighter jets on Christmas Eve 2023, in a move Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “sets the right mood for the entire year ahead.”

Venezuela: Human rights abuses and lack of health care plague this South American nation, which has been in a political crisis since 2014. In 2019, diplomatic personnel were withdrawn from the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. Threats in the country include crime, civil unrest, kidnapping, wrongful detention and poor health infrastructure.

Yemen: Six of the nine risk factors defined by the State Department – terrorism, civil unrest, health risks, kidnapping, armed conflict and landmines – are all present in Yemen. Despite private companies offering tourist visits to the Yemeni island of Socotra, the U.S. government argues those arranging such visits “are putting tourists in danger.” Civil war and cholera are also both present throughout the country. The U.S. Embassy in Sanaa halted operations in 2015. The country has experienced a relative lull in the civil war fighting, but as peace negotiations have gotten traction, flare ups in the fighting have jeopardized progress. Most recently, the U.S. and U.K. have carried out a series of airstrikes in the country, targeting Iran-backed Houthi sites.

Other Countries to Watch

Since Jan. 1, the State Department has updated travel advisories for 17 different countries as well as for the West Bank and Gaza, adding information about specific regions or risk factors, or simply renewing an existing advisory. Travel advisory levels can change based on several factors in a nation, such as increased civil unrest, policies that affect human rights or higher risks of unlawful detention.

The State Department has given about 25 countries an assessment of Level 3, meaning it recommends people “reconsider travel” to those destinations.

On Oct. 14, one week after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel, Israel and the West Bank were both moved from Level 2 to Level 3, while Gaza remains at Level 4. The region’s travel advisory was updated in November to reflect travel restrictions for certain government employees who have not already left the area, and it was updated again on Jan. 3.

Following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in early October, the U.S. State Department raised Lebanon ’s travel advisory level from a Level 3 to a Level 4 level due to “the unpredictable security situation related to rocket, missile, and artillery exchanges” between Israel and Hezbollah or other militant groups. In December, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut returned to normal staffing and presence, and on Jan. 29, the country was moved back to Level 3. Crime, terrorism, armed conflict, civil unrest, kidnapping and unexploded landmines are listed as the country’s primary risk factors. However, the country’s borders with Syria and with Israel, as well as refugee settlements within Lebanon, are specifically noted as Level 4 regions.

China became a Level 3 country in late 2020, with an update in December 2022 citing “the surge in COVID-19 cases, arbitrary enforcement of local laws, and COVID-19-related restrictions” as the reason for the advisory. In June 2023, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) was moved from the Level 3 to the Level 2 list, but travelers are still advised to be cautious in the area due to “arbitrary enforcement of local laws.” Meanwhile, Macau remains at Level 3.

Following an attempted coup in August 2023, Niger was elevated to Level 4 in August and the Department of State ordered all non-emergency U.S. government personnel and family members to leave the U.S. Embassy in Niamey. In early January 2024, the overall risk level for the country was lowered back to Level 3. Despite the new classification, the State Department still asks non-emergency government personnel and eligible family members to depart the country.

In mid-December 2023 there was an explosion at Guinea’s main fuel depot which has since affected access to health care and basic goods and services. The country was subsequently designated a Level 3 nation after having previously been Level 2. Concerns about civil unrest, health, crime and fuel shortages impacting local infrastructure were listed as the primary risk factors contributing to the change.

Several Level 3 countries are among the worst countries for human trafficking, as designated by the State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report . Level 3 countries on this list include Papua New Guinea, Guinea Bissau, China and Chad. There are also nine Level 4 countries designated as among the worst for human trafficking: Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Syria, South Sudan and Venezuela.

Over 70 countries are currently at Level 2, meaning the State Department recommends travelers “exercise increased caution” when traveling to those destinations.

Botswana became the newest Level 2 country on Feb. 26 after having previously been Level 1, with crime noted as the primary risk factor.

France, which saw nationwide protests throughout 2023, has civil unrest and terrorism noted as risk factors for its Level 2 status, and Sweden’s Level 2 status is associated with risks of terrorism.

The Level 2 travel advisory for the Bahamas was updated in January to reflect water safety concerns. The advisory warns that “activities involving commercial recreational watercraft, including water tours, are not consistently regulated” and notes that government personnel are “not permitted to use independently operated jet-ski rentals on New Providence and Paradise Islands.” It also warns visitors to be mindful of sharks, weather and water conditions. The advisory also says that crime is a primary risk factor with gang-on-gang violence contributing to high homicide rates in some areas. Visitors are asked to “be vigilant” and to not physically resist robbery attempts.

Bangladesh 's Level 2 travel advisory was updated in October 2023 to add a note about the country’s general election , which took place Jan. 7, 2024. The advisory states “demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and escalate into violence.” The U.S. has since claimed the country’s election was not free nor fair.

In November 2023, several Level 2 travel advisories were updated with new cautionary information. The advisory for Ghana was updated to reflect threats against LGBTQI+ travelers specifically, noting “anti-LGBTQI+ rhetoric and violence have increased in recent years.” Meanwhile, the advisory for South Africa was updated in February to note that routes recommended by GPS may be unsafe with higher risk for crime.

Turkmenistan was moved off of the Level 2 list to become the newest addition to the Level 1 list on Jan. 22, meaning normal precautions are recommended but there are no risk factors causing travelers to practice increased caution.

The State Department asks travelers to pay attention to travel advisory levels and alerts , review country information pages for their destinations and read related country security reports before going abroad.

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Travel ban will end Nov. 8 for international visitors who show proof of vaccination, negative coronavirus test

Children under 18 do not have to show proof of vaccination but will be required to show proof of a negative test.

issued a travel ban

Vaccination will not be required for children under age 18 to travel to the United States once officials lift a ban on international visitors, but they will have to show proof of a negative coronavirus test before boarding a flight, according to rules outlined Monday by the Biden administration.

With about two weeks to go before the United States lifts a travel ban on visitors from 33 countries, federal health officials offered more specifics for travelers and airlines before restrictions are lifted Nov. 8. Although vaccination won’t be required for children, most non-U.S. citizens and nonimmigrants arriving by air will have to show both proof of vaccination and proof of a negative coronavirus test taken within three days of departure.

“With science and public health as our guide, the United States has developed a new international air travel system that both enhances the safety of Americans here at home and enhances the safety of international air travel,” the White House said in a statement.

Federal health officials said the exception was made for children because many do not have access to or are not yet eligible for the vaccines. However, children must still be tested before traveling to the United States. Those traveling with vaccinated adults must be tested within the previous three days, while those traveling with unvaccinated adults or who are traveling alone must show proof of a negative test taken one day before their flight.

The new rules don’t require U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents to be vaccinated but do outline different testing requirements depending on their vaccine status. Those who have been vaccinated must show proof of a negative test taken within of their departure. Those who are unvaccinated must show proof of a test taken one day before their departure.

It will be up to airlines to verify a person’s vaccination and testing status, officials said. Many airlines already have systems that allow travelers to upload proof of a negative test and vaccine status. In addition, international visitors will have to provide information for how they can be reached in the United States for contact-tracing efforts.

“These are strict safety protocols that follow the science and public health to advance the safety of Americans here at home and the safety of international air travel,” a senior White House official said in a briefing with reporters.

The Biden administration announced in September that it was replacing the travel ban on international visitors with a system that would rely on vaccination, testing and contact tracing for visitors wishing to come to the United States.

U.S. announces end to travel ban on international visitors

The announcement was welcomed by the travel industry, which has been pushing the government for more than a year to lift the travel ban on travelers from 33 countries. With the ban in place, industry representatives feared the United States was losing ground to Europe, which began to ease travel restrictions for Americans this summer. Canada opened its borders on Aug. 9 to visitors from the United States who had been vaccinated.

Kevin M. Burke, president of Airports Council International-North America, said the new protocols will help the nation safely and securely reopen its borders.

“We appreciate the Biden administration’s commitment to working with industry on these complex challenges and we look forward to our ongoing work as the November 8 reopen date nears,” he said in a statement.

Since the announcement in September, the administration has slowly been laying the groundwork for lifting the ban. That included the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deciding which vaccines would be accepted, specifying that travelers must have received those with full or emergency approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the World Health Organization.

Fully vaccinated travelers can come to the U.S. even if their doses are mixed

In January, President Donald Trump announced a plan to end the travel ban, saying it was unnecessary because of his administration’s policy that required international travelers to provide proof of a negative test before boarding U.S.-bound flights. But within days of taking office, the Biden administration reinstated the ban and added South Africa, and later India, to the list, citing the need to control the spread of coronavirus variants.

In June, the White House formed working groups to help determine when to lift rules that banned international visitors from certain countries.

Under the restrictions, most foreign nationals who have been in the United Kingdom, several European Union countries, Brazil or China in the previous 14 days are not permitted to enter the United States. India was added to the list in May.

The White House also announced this month it was easing pandemic-related restrictions on overland border crossings from Canada and Mexico. Officials said Monday they would release additional information about requirements that people coming to the United States via land borders must follow.

The updated policy offers limited exceptions for individuals enrolled in certain coronavirus vaccine clinical trials and those who shouldn’t get vaccinated for medical reasons. Those who need to travel for emergency or humanitarian reasons and have a letter issued by the U.S. government verifying their need to travel also may be exempted.

In addition, those with non-tourist visas coming to the United States from countries where there is low vaccine availability as determined by the CDC may be allowed to travel to the United States. Those who receive exemptions but intend to stay for more than 60 days may be required to get vaccinated once in the United States.

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What Does the US State Department’s Worldwide Travel Advisory Actually Mean?

By Matt Ortile

What Does the US State Departments Worldwide Travel Advisory Actually Mean

On Thursday, October 19, the US State Department issued a worldwide travel advisory urging American citizens to “exercise increased caution” while overseas, “due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, [and] demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests.”

The alert comes as the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas escalates in the Middle East. According to the New York Times , the advisory is also in response to protests worldwide that have, in some cases, led to “violent clashes at U.S. diplomatic compounds.” Throughout this week, protesters all over the world have held demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, calling for an end to Israel’s airstrikes and blockade of the territory, according to the AP . There are also protests in New York City calling for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and in Washington, DC calling for President Biden to press for an Israel-Hamas war cease-fire.

But what does the State Department's warning mean for anyone currently traveling, or with an upcoming trip? And does it actually suggest that you shouldn't travel… at all?

The short answer is no. But the advisory is a fair reminder to do exactly as it instructs, which is, for the time being, to be cautious while in environments unfamiliar to you.

“I don’t think the advisory is asking people to cancel their planned travel, but it is asking us all to be more alert when we are traveling,” says Mei Zhang, founder of the travel company WildChina and a member of Condé Nast Traveler ’s Global Advisory Board . “To me, that means being more alert in airports, avoiding super crowded iconic tourist places, not having your eyes glued to your phone while traveling. Look around.” As a precaution, Zhang recommends signing up for the State Department’s STEP program , as well as keeping your friends and family informed of your travel plans. “Just take a little extra caution,” she says. “This is a good idea regardless of the warning.”

As for changing travel plans, Catherine Heald, the co-founder and CEO of the travel company Remote Lands , says that many of her clients have canceled their upcoming travel plans to Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan, among others, and pivoted their trips toward destinations geographically far away from active conflict zones. (Read more about navigating upcoming travel to countries bordering Israel and Gaza here .)

While reconsidering itineraries, Heald advises all travelers to not panic: “Look at the facts,” Heald says. “Study a map and avoid the danger zones. Buy travel insurance so if the situation spreads or escalates—and we all sincerely hope it won’t—you are covered.”

Luis Vargas, CEO and founder of travel operator Modern Adventure , recommends equipping yourself with information. Read up on the local news in the area of your intended destination to get a better sense of what’s actually happening on the ground. “In many cases, major events—both political and natural—are locally or regionally concentrated, meaning nearby areas can be unaffected,” Vargas says. For example, during and in the aftermath of the earthquake in Morocco in September , some communities experienced the worst of it, while Marrakech and other parts of the country were largely unaffected. An event in one part of a country or region does not mean it is happening everywhere in that country or region.

The last time the State Department issued a similar worldwide travel advisory was on August 2, 2022 , due to a "higher potential for anti-American violence given the death of Ayman al-Zawahiri,” the al-Qaeda leader killed on July 31 in a US drone strike in Afghanistan .

The US State Department’s travel advisories are most often specified by country. This month, the State Department has raised the travel advisory for Lebanon to the highest level, “Level 4: Do not travel;” the travel advisory for Israel and the West Bank has been raised to “Level 3: Reconsider travel.” Jordan and Egypt, which share borders with Israel, are at Level 2 and Level 3, respectively.

Wherever you are headed, take stock of a number of factors before you cancel or reschedule any travel plans: Consider your destination’s relative risk and your own personal risk tolerance—and that of your travel companions. Evaluate the level of access you will have to consulate services and information, as well as to your own personal safety network; if you have friends and family in the area of your destination, ask them for tips on how to stay safe and up-to-date on local news developments.

From there, make an informed decision about your travel plans that you—and your travel companions, if you have them—will be comfortable with. Traveling is an exercise in preparedness. As with all trips, make sure you feel ready to navigate whatever may come your way, no matter where you go. And of course, follow the worldwide travel advisory’s directive, brief and broad as it may be, to “stay alert in locations frequented by tourists” and to “enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) to receive information and alerts and make it easier to locate you in an emergency overseas.”

Taking a long-term view, Vargas offers a reminder that tourism is an integral part of many economies—in the Middle East and all over the world. "When travel advisories are adopted, more broadly than intended, the effects can also be devastating over time,” says Vargas. If you aren't comfortable traveling now, consider postponing your trip rather than canceling it; and, if you must cancel, see if you can redirect some of your financial resources to organizations offering aid to people who need it most.

At the end of the day, “trust your gut,” Vargas says. “If you are feeling uneasy to the point where enjoyment of the trip is compromised, postponing may be the right choice for you.”

This is a developing story and will be updated with more information.

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State Department issues 'worldwide caution' for Americans overseas

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The U.S. State Department issued a worldwide travel advisory on Thursday, urging Americans overseas to exercise increased caution.

The travel advisory cited “increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests.”

The State Department recommended U.S. citizens stay vigilant in locations popular with tourists and sign up for the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program , which can provide information and make it easier to locate them in an emergency.

"The U.S. Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens overseas," a State Department spokesperson told USA TODAY in an emailed statement. "We take seriously our commitment to provide U.S. citizens with clear, timely, and reliable information about every country in the world so they can make informed travel decisions."

The warning comes as thousands have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war . At least 3,785 people had been killed in Gaza as of Thursday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, including more than 1,500 children. Over 1,400 people have been killed in Israel, most of whom were civilians.

Learn more: Best travel insurance

Live updates: Hamas commander killed in air strike as Israel bombs 'safe zones' in Gaza:

The State Department raised a travel advisory for Lebanon to Level 4 on Tuesday, warning Americans not to travel to the country “due to the unpredictable security situation related to rocket, missile, and artillery exchanges between Israel and Hizballah or other armed militant factions.” There is also an advisory in place warning against going to Gaza and urging travelers to reconsider visiting Israel and the West Bank.

Many Americans have been evacuating the region , including on a Royal Caribbean International cruise ship that carried U.S. nationals from Haifa to Limassol, Cyprus, earlier this week.

Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at [email protected].

Why America Scrapped Its Pandemic Travel Bans

The country’s decision wasn’t based on science; it was based on politics.

A map of the United States covered with airplane emojis and a Band-Aid

When the United States announced this week that it would relax its ban on travelers from Europe and other countries after 18 long months, the goal was not to aid the suffering travel sector, nor was it to appease frustrated European travelers who spent much of the summer watching Americans travel freely to their respective countries while being unable to make the same trip in reverse. It didn’t even appear to be influenced by a shift in the pandemic situation, nor Europe’s comparably higher COVID-19 vaccination rates.

In the end, the impetus for the long-awaited (and arguably long-overdue ) policy change appeared to be submarines .

This, at least, is how some observers have interpreted the about-face from the Biden administration, which only days ago insisted that it would be keeping its international travel restrictions in place owing to ongoing concerns over the coronavirus’s hypertransmissible Delta variant. For months, appeals from European capitals and affected families to drop the ban went unheeded. A series of shifts within the U.S. and abroad appear to have changed that calculus. As European partners have grown irate over a new “Anglo” military alliance , and as the U.S. has begun to impose more stringent domestic vaccine requirements , changing course on the travel restrictions has become more politically palatable. And so, the policy has finally been changed.

But in giving its allies what they wanted, the U.S. also ended up confirming one of their key arguments: that these restrictions, like many of the byzantine rules that govern the way people live and travel, had little basis in fact or science. By lifting its travel restrictions in an apparent bid to appease jilted partners, the U.S. helped illustrate how nonsensical the ban was in the first place.

In some ways, the Biden administration’s decision was the culmination of worsening ties between Washington and Europe. Although the problems began at the start of the summer, when the U.S. declined to reciprocate the European Union’s decision to reopen its borders to American tourists, transatlantic discontent quickly began to grow in size and scope. First there was the unilateral and seemingly chaotic handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, during which President Joe Biden rebuffed European leaders’ requests to delay the August 31 deadline to allow more time for evacuations. Then came last week’s news of the new AUKUS pact among the U.S., Britain, and Australia—an agreement that ended an existing submarine deal between Australia and France and prompted Paris to withdraw its ambassadors to Washington and Canberra in protest.

“After the submarines, I think Europeans really needed to have some proof that something was going well,” Célia Belin, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, in Washington, D.C., who has closely followed this issue, told me. She noted that although the Biden administration had formed a series of working groups charged with determining how to best restart travel, there had been no indication that a change was imminent. Even British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters on a journey across the Atlantic that “ I wouldn’t necessarily hold my breath ” about the rules changing.

Thomas Wright: The international travel restrictions make little sense

In the end, he didn’t have to. With world leaders gathering for the United Nations General Assembly, and with the fallout over the submarine deal still ongoing, “there was a need to just lift this irritant,” Belin said.

The White House sought to downplay the timing of the announcement, telling reporters that the decision was based “ on science ,” not diplomacy. Though that certainly may have been true earlier in the pandemic, when vaccination rates in Europe were low and the threat of variants was high, it certainly isn’t now. After all, under the current travel rules, Americans can travel to and from Europe largely without restriction . The only way that a vaccinated European can do the same is if they first spend two weeks in a third country, such as Turkey or Mexico, that is not subject to the same travel restrictions despite having comparable, if not higher, case rates and lower rates of vaccination.

The randomness with which travel rules and restrictions are determined isn’t a symptom of the pandemic alone. Visa rules and restrictions have long been tools of foreign policy. When countries grant visa-free travel, they often do so as a symbolic act of cooperation, or on the condition of reciprocity, or as a perk attached to other agreements (India, for example, made looser immigration rules for its citizens a condition of any trade deal with Britain). When countries restrict travel, however, it can be interpreted as a kind of diplomatic retorsion—as has been the case in the growing rivalry between the U.S. and China, both of which have made it more difficult for the other’s students and scholars to obtain visas over concerns that such exchanges pose a national-security threat.

Read: The declining power of the American passport

It’s perhaps for this reason that Europeans were so outraged by what many saw as an “ incomprehensible ” and “ Kafkaesque ” policy—one that was divisive not just politically but, in the case of many transatlantic families separated by the rules, literally.

Yet while the change in rules was widely welcomed across European capitals, it’s unlikely to be enough to mend the transatlantic divide. On AUKUS, in particular, EU leaders have warned that “ something is broken ” in the relationship and that a number of open questions will need to be answered before relations can return to “ business as usual .”

“It’s definitely not enough,” Belin said, “but it’s a good first step in acknowledging at least that your partners deserve a minimum of respect. One less irritant cannot be a bad thing.”

FactCheck.org

The Facts on Trump’s Travel Restrictions

By Robert Farley

Posted on March 6, 2020

President Donald Trump has made a number of misleading statements about his decision on Jan. 31 to impose travel restrictions related to the novel coronavirus epidemic.

  • Trump has referred to the travel restrictions as a “travel ban.” There isn’t an outright ban, as there are exceptions, including for Americans and their family members.
  • Trump said he was “bold” in imposing travel restrictions even though “everybody said, it’s too early, it’s too soon” and “a lot of people that work on this stuff almost exclusively” told him “don’t do it.” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the decision stemmed from “the uniform recommendations of the career public health officials here at HHS.”
  • Trump said Democrats “loudly criticized and protested” his announced travel restrictions, and that they “called me a racist because I made that decision.” Trump is overstating Democratic opposition. None of the party’s congressional leaders and none of the Democratic candidates running for president have directly criticized that decision, though at least two Democrats have.
  • Trump said the travel restrictions “saved a lot of lives” and reduced U.S. COVID-19 cases to “a very small number.” But experts say there isn’t enough data to make that determination. A study in the journal Science found the various travel limitations across the globe initially helped to slow the spread, but the number of cases worldwide rose anyway because the virus had already begun traveling undetected internationally.

Azar declared a public health emergency for the novel coronavirus on Jan. 31, and announced the travel restrictions to and from China, effective Feb. 2. On Feb. 29, Trump expanded those travel restrictions to Iran. Trump has repeatedly boasted that his decision to impose the travel restrictions was bold and worked. But his rhetoric has sometimes stretched the facts.

A Travel ‘Ban’?

For starters, health experts say Trump was wrong to refer to the travel restrictions as a “travel ban,” as he did in a telephone interview on March 4 with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. During a town hall on March 5, Trump said he “closed down the borders to China and to other areas that are very badly affected.” That’s not accurate.

As Azar explained when he announced the travel restrictions on Jan. 31, the policy prohibits non-U.S. citizens, other than the immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who have traveled to China within the last two weeks from entering the U.S.

At a House subcommittee hearing on the coronavirus on Feb. 5, Ron Klain , White House Ebola response coordinator under the Obama administration, took issue with the characterization of the travel restrictions as a travel “ban.”

“W e don’t have a travel ban,” Klain said. “We have a travel Band-Aid right now. First, before it was imposed, 300,000 people came here from China in the previous month. So, the horse is out of the barn.”

“There’s no restriction on Americans going back and forth,” Klain said. “There are warnings. People should abide by those warnings. But today, 30 planes will land in Los Angeles that either originated in Beijing or came here on one-stops, 30 in San Francisco, 25 in New York City. Okay? So, unless we think that the color of the passport someone carries is a meaningful public health restriction, we have not placed a meaningful public health restriction.”

Indeed, on Jan. 24, a week before the travel restrictions, the CDC confirmed two cases of the novel coronavirus in the U.S. from people who had returned from Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began.

Furthermore, Klain said, the import of goods from China is exempt from the travel restrictions, “and, of course, the people who fly the planes and drive the boats that bring those goods from China. We couldn’t ban that activity. We vitally need that. Ninety percent of the antibiotics in this country come from China. All kinds of vital medical supplies … we will use to treat people. So, travel bans … that’s not what we’re imposing, that’s not what exists.”

As part of the travel restrictions, Azar announced that any U.S. citizen returning to the U.S. who had been in Hubei Province in China in the previous 14 days would be subject to mandatory quarantine and health screening. U.S. citizens returning from mainland China outside Hubei Province were ordered to undergo health screenings and “up to 14 days of monitored self-quarantine to ensure they’ve not contracted the virus and do not pose a public health risk,” Azar said.

At the time the restrictions were announced, there were only six confirmed cases of the novel virus in the U.S. The outbreak, which began in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, has  now  spread to more than 70 countries, including the U.S. According to a Johns Hopkins University  case tracker  and a  New York Times   database , as of  March 6 ,  more than 250 people in the U.S. have been infected with the new disease, known as COVID-19 , and at least 14 have died.

Did Trump Buck the Experts?

Trump has repeatedly said that his decision to impose the travel restrictions on Jan. 31 was made despite objections from most of the experts on containing the spread of infectious disease.

“But we closed those borders very early, against the advice of a lot of professionals, and we turned out to be right. I took a lot of heat for that,” Trump said on March 4.

Asked by Hannity the same day about his rationale at the time he made the decision, Trump said, “I would say everybody said, it’s too early, it’s too soon, and good people, brilliant people, in many ways, doctors and lawyers and, frankly, a lot of people that work on this stuff almost exclusively. And they said, don’t do it.”

Trump repeated this claim at his town hall in Scranton on March 5, saying that as soon as he heard that China had a problem with the coronavirus, he asked how many people the U.S. had coming in from China. “Nobody but me asked that question,” Trump said. Trump added that his decision to impose the travel restrictions was made “against the advice of almost everybody.”

Everybody? Not according to Azar, who said it was the “uniform” recommendation of experts in his department.

“The travel restrictions that we put in place in consultation with the president were very measured and incremental,” Azar told reporters on Feb. 7. “These were the uniform recommendations of the career public health officials here at HHS.”

The World Health Organization cautioned against the overuse of travel restrictions, but stopped short of saying that Trump’s decision in the U.S.  — or anyone else’s in other countries — was inappropriate.

“[W]e reiterate our call to all countries not to impose restrictions inconsistent with the International Health Regulations,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told its executive board . “Such restrictions can have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit. So far, 22 countries have reported such restrictions to WHO. Where such measures have been implemented, we urge that they are short in duration, proportionate to the public health risks, and are reconsidered regularly as the situation evolves.”

As we said, three experts called by Democrats at a House subcommittee hearing on Feb. 5 questioned the decision. Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo , a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, was one of them.

Nuzzo, Feb. 5 : [W]e need to seriously reexamine the current policy of banning travel from China and quarantining returning travelers. All of the evidence we have indicates that travel restrictions and quarantines directed at individual countries are unlikely to keep the virus out of our borders. These measures may exacerbate the epidemic’s social and economic tolls and can make us less safe. Simply put, this virus is spreading too quickly and too silently, and our surveillance is too limited for us to truly know which countries have active transmission and which don’t. The virus could enter the U.S. from other parts of the world not on our restricted list, and it may already be circulating here. The U.S. was a target of travel bans and quarantines during the 2009 flu pandemic. It didn’t work to stop the spread, and it hurt our country. I am concerned that by our singling out China for travel bans, we are effectively penalizing it for reporting cases. This may diminish its willingness to further share data and chill other countries’ willingness to be transparent about their own outbreaks. Travel bans and quarantines will make us less safe if they divert attention and resources from higher priority disease mitigation approaches that we know are needed to respond to cases within the United States. … We often see, when we have emerging disease outbreaks, our first instinct is to try to lock down travel to prevent the introduction of virus to our country. And that is a completely understandable instinct. I have never seen instances in which that has worked when we are talking about a virus at this scale. Respiratory viruses like this one, unlike others–they just move quickly. They are hard to spot because they look like many other diseases. It’s very difficult to interrupt them at borders. You would need to have complete surveillance in order to do that. And we simply don’t have that.

During the hearing, Dr. Jennifer Bouey , chair of China policy studies at the Rand Corporation, agreed saying that the policy to restrict travel “doesn’t help that much in this–the current situation.”

But according to Paul Offit , chair of vaccinology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, those kinds of opinions were in the minority at the time the president made his decision.

“I don’t know anyone who thought the travel restrictions were a bad idea early on,” Offit told us in a phone interview.

When a virus like that is restricted to one location, as it appeared to be early on, travel restrictions can lessen the odds of it spreading to this country, Offit said. Over time, however, and as cases began to be identified in the U.S., travel restrictions make much less of a difference, he said.

Epidemiologists and former U.S. health officials told Time  that the initial travel restrictions were valid and “likely helped to slow the spread of the virus. The problem, they say, is that once it was clear that the virus was within our borders officials did not pivot quickly enough to changing circumstances.”

Democratic Criticism

Trump has repeatedly claimed that Democrats have “loudly criticized and protested” his imposition of the travel restrictions, and have called the decision “racist.” But while leading Democrats have been outspoken in their criticism of the president’s overall response to the epidemic, very few have criticized his decision to impose limited travel restrictions.

“I took a lot of heat,” Trump said during a Feb. 27 press conference . “I mean, some people called me racist because I made a decision so early. And we had never done that as a country before, let alone early. So it was a, you know, bold decision. It turned out to be a good decision. But I was criticized by the Democrats. They called me a racist because I made that decision, if you can believe that one.”

At a rally in South Carolina the following day, Trump said Democrats “loudly criticized and protested” his decision.

“But, anyway — but we’ve done an incredible job because we closed early,” Trump said in a meeting with African American leaders on Feb. 28. “And actually, the Democrats said I was a racist. Not from black-people standpoint, but from Asian-people standpoint, from Chinese-people standpoint. They said I was a racist because I closed our country to people coming in from certain areas. They called me a racist.”

We reached out to the Trump campaign and asked for names, but we did not get a response. We scoured news clips and could find only a couple instances of elected Democrats criticizing the president’s action to restrict travel.

In the House subcommittee hearing on Feb. 5 that we referenced earlier, several witnesses called by the Democrats expressed concerns about the travel restrictions and warned they could do more harm than good.

And at least one Democrat agreed.

“The United States and other countries around the world have put in place unprecedented travel restrictions in response to the virus,” said Democratic Rep. Eliot L. Engel . “These measures have not proven to improve public health outcomes, rather they tend to cause economic harm and to stoke racist and discriminatory responses to this epidemic.”

A day earlier, Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, who presided over the hearing, told Politico , “In our response we can’t create prejudices and harbor anxieties toward one population.” Bera told Politico the decision to impose travel restrictions “probably doesn’t make sense” given that the outbreak had already spread to several other countries by that point. “At this juncture, it’s going to be very hard to contain the virus,” Bera said.

But the Democratic leaders in Congress have simply not mentioned Trump’s travel restrictions.

In a Feb. 25 tweet , Trump claimed that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “didn’t like my early travel closings.” Trump’s comment appears to be based on a fabricated tweet that circulated widely on Facebook.

Schumer has been critica l of the Trump administration’s response to the spread of the novel coronavirus . But he hasn’t mentioned the travel restrictions in that criticism.

In Trump’s Fox News interview on March 4, host Sean Hannity said former vice president and current Democratic challenger Joe Biden “accused the president of being xenophobic, while he was trying to protect the health of the American people.”

On the day Trump imposed the travel restrictions, Biden did criticize Trump for his “record of hysteria and xenophobia,” but it is unclear whether Biden was referring to Trump’s travel restrictions, or Trump’s overall qualifications to deal with the epidemic.

“We have right now a crisis with the coronavirus, emanating from China,” Biden said on Jan. 31 at a campaign event in Iowa. “A national emergency worldwide alerts. The American people need to have a president who they can trust what he says about it, that he is going to act rationally about it. In moments like this, this is where the credibility of the president is most needed, as he explains what we should and should not do. This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia – hysterical xenophobia – and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science.”

In an op-ed published several days prior in USA Today , Biden similarly argued: “The possibility of a pandemic is a challenge Donald Trump is unqualified to handle as president.” Biden wrote that he recalled “how Trump sought to stoke fear and stigma during the 2014 Ebola epidemic.” Trump, Biden wrote, “ railed against the evidence-based response our administration put in place — which quelled the crisis and saved hundreds of thousands of lives — in favor of reactionary travel bans that would only have made things worse.”

Although Democratic leaders and Democratic presidential candidates have been highly critical of Trump’s response to the coronavirus, we couldn’t find any examples of them directly and clearly criticizing the travel restrictions.

In a Feb. 4 letter to Trump, Democratic Reps. Nita Lowey, chair of the Appropriations Committee, and Rose DeLauro, chair of one of the subcommittees, wrote that they “strongly support” the president’s decision to declare a public health emergency in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, and they specifically cited the administration’s actions to impose “significant travel restrictions.”

Have Travel Restrictions ‘Saved a Lot of Lives’?

Trump said his “bold” decision has since been vindicated, that it has “ saved a lot of lives ” and that because of his decision “that’s why we have a very small number of people that we have to really worry about.”

At a press conference on Feb. 29 attended by Trump, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci , the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, praised “the original decision that was made by the president” to impose travel restrictions to and from China.

“We prevented travel from China to the United States,” said Fauci, who has worked for multiple administrations. “If we had not done that, we would have had many, many more cases right here that we would have to be dealing with.”

But not everyone agrees.

Nuzzo, the senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said there’s no evidence, at least, that the travel restrictions have saved lives or reduced the number of cases in the U.S.

“We have not seen any evidence that shows the travel restrictions stopped or slowed down transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19,” Nuzzo told us via email. “It is possible that it did, but there is no evidence to show this. Rather there are a number of reasons to believe that this may very well not be the case.”

Chiefly, she said, that’s because “we weren’t seriously looking for cases in the US.”

“If you had mild infection, you were not tested,” Nuzzo said. “If you had viral pneumonia not requiring oxygen but had not been to Wuhan, you wouldn’t have been tested.”

“Prior to the US travel restrictions, China began suspending outbound flights,” Nuzzo said. “Airlines also began canceling flights due to low travel volume. Then, the US implemented travel restrictions, which further reduced travel from China. The exception was Americans who were returning home from China. These folks were subject to quarantine upon return. A number of cases were found among these individuals. If you only test travelers from China and you greatly reduce the number of travelers coming from China, then you would be likely to not find many cases.

“But it doesn’t mean the virus hadn’t entered the US prior to travel restrictions,” Nuzzo said, as data now suggests occurred in Washington state.

Also, she said other countries, including Japan, Singapore and Korea, had a significant number of coronavirus cases, but they weren’t subject to travel restrictions. The U.S. “would likely not have picked it up” if travelers coming to the U.S. from those countries “because we weren’t using these other countries as criteria for testing.”

A modeling study published in Science magazine on March 6, “The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak,” concluded that, “In areas affected by the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19), travel restrictions will only modestly impact the spread of the outbreak,” according to a press release for the study.

“Based on the study’s results, the authors say the greatest benefit to mitigating the epidemic will come from public health interventions and behavioral changes that achieve a considerable reduction in the disease transmissibility – factors like early detection, isolation, and handwashing,” according to the press release.

The authors concluded that travel restrictions introduced by the Chinese government in Wuhan in Jan. 23  and the halting of airline flights to and from China starting in early February at first slowed the spread of the disease to the rest of the world. Even still, a large number of individuals exposed to the virus had been traveling internationally without being detected and, the authors note, the number of imported cases around the world went up in a matter of weeks.

“Moving forward we expect that travel restrictions to COVID-19 affected areas will have modest effects, and that transmission-reduction interventions will provide the greatest benefit to mitigate the epidemic,” the authors wrote.

issued a travel ban

Did Trump Ban All Travel From China at the Start of the Pandemic?

Trump credits an early 2020 ban on travelers from mainland china as his signature move to tackle the pandemic., nur ibrahim, published sept. 22, 2020.

Mixture

About this rating

A restriction on foreigners traveling from mainland China took effect on Feb. 2, 2020, but thousands of Chinese and foreign nationals from Hong Kong and Macau entered the U.S. in the three months following. Thousands of Americans and foreigners still arrived in the U.S. on direct flights from China after the restrictions were imposed.

There was no ban on travel from China’s administrative zones, as thousands of travelers managed to enter the U.S. from Hong Kong and Macau, regions also struck by COVID-19. Many travelers did not receive the same enhanced screenings for the virus as those required by Americans returning from mainland China.

Evidence from past studies and recent reports showed that travel control measures marginally delayed but did not stop the spread of pandemics, but there is little available proof that the February restrictions helped save thousands or millions of lives as Trump has claimed. Differing responses from experts and officials suggest that the full impact of this policy has yet to be determined.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s so-called ban on travel from China was a major talking point he frequently raised as evidence of his quick response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Announced on Jan. 31, 2020, and enforced on Feb. 2, 2020, the Trump administration stated that the ban would prevent the entry of aliens, or non-U.S. citizens, who had been in mainland China in the 14 days prior to traveling to the U.S.

In the ensuing weeks and months, Trump continued to reference the ban multiple times as a success story that saved lives:

We would’ve had thousands of people additionally die if we let people come in from heavily-infected China. But we stopped it; we did a travel ban in January [...] And we saved tens of thousands of lives, but we actually saved millions of lives by closing — by closing up, we saved millions, potentially millions of lives.

But many people did manage to come to the U.S. from “heavily-infected China” and its special administrative regions Hong Kong and Macau. Not only did news organizations uncover the porous and mismanaged nature of the “ban,” noting that the measures came too late , but some experts found little to no evidence that the ban resulted in a significant prevention of a spread of COVID-19 cases.

A more accurate way to describe Trump’s Jan. 31 proclamation is as a “restriction” on travel from mainland China — not as an outright ban. There were numerous exemptions in place that appeared to nullify the goal of preventing travel into the country to stop the spread of the virus. These exemptions included people traveling from the Special Autonomous Regions of Hong Kong and Macau, and U.S. citizens, residents, their spouses, and close relatives. More details about the exemptions can be found here .

Hong Kong and Macau are both governed under the “one country, two systems” principle that allows them to retain their own forms of administration, but with limited autonomy. They are still largely under the control of the People’s Republic of China. From both of these regions, Chinese citizens and other foreign nationals have been able to travel into the U.S. since restrictions were imposed. An Associated Press report found that more than 5,600 Chinese and foreign nationals flew to the U.S. in February 2020 alone. Around Feb. 2, at least 15 cases of the virus had been detected in Hong Kong, and seven more were found in Macau that were later traced to the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan.

Even before the restriction was imposed, Americans and other nationalities came into the U.S. from mainland China unabated. According to an April 2020 report from The New York Times , at least 430,000 people arrived in the United States on direct flights from China since the outbreak was reported on the last day of 2019, including nearly 40,000 in the two months after the February restrictions were put in place. Thousands of these travelers flew directly from Wuhan. At least 60% of the travelers arriving in the U.S. on direct flights from China in February were not American citizens, according to government data.

Screening and monitoring of many travelers was found to be sporadic, and the data shared with states was incorrect, plagued by bad telephone numbers, erroneous itineraries, and travelers even claiming they had never been to China. According to internal notes and emails received by The Associated Press, there were numerous examples of travelers slipping through the cracks in the system. In one email from Feb. 6, 2020, a CDC employee wrote : “Hearing word of people already leaking through screening system and ending up in states without the funneling airports. Knew it would not be perfect, but it has begun.”

Furthermore, research being conducted in the aftermath of travel restrictions showed little evidence that they had a major impact on curbing the spread of the virus. A paper published in March in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at the impact of border control measures implemented in several countries. They concluded “that these measures likely slowed the rate of exportation from mainland China to other countries, but are insufficient to contain the global spread of COVID-19.”

On June 8, 2020, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, released a working paper looking at the effects of Trump’s travel restrictions from China. They noted that historically, such restrictions have been ineffective at halting or significantly delaying the spread of pandemics. They concluded:

The travel restrictions had no effect on the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States. Regardless of the intervention date or how the spread of COVID-19 is measured, we find that the travel restrictions did not delay the prevalence of COVID-19 in the United States.

We should note that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, praised the administration's restrictions on travel. On Feb. 29, 2020, he said : "We prevented travel from China to the United States. If we had not done that, we would have had many, many more cases right here that we would have to be dealing with."

Few doubt that the death toll from COVID-19 would have been heavier if global travel had not been "constricted." That said, we are unable to determine the full impact of the travel restrictions, including the number of lives saved in the United States. Snopes reached out to Trump’s presidential campaign to learn if there was any evidence of the number of lives saved as a result of the travel restrictions, and why the restrictions exempted travel from Hong Kong and Macau. We will update this post if we hear back.

The Trump administration did impose a number of restrictions, but not a complete ban on travel from China and its administrative regions. Since some analysis suggested it had a minimal impact on reducing the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S., but the full effects of the administration's actions are still being determined, we rate this claim a “Mixture.”

Braun, Stephen, Hope Yen, and Calvin Woodward.   "AP Fact Check: Trump and the Virus-Era China Ban That Isn’t."    AP News .   18 July 2020. 

Braun, Stephen, and Jason Dearen.   "Trump’s 'Strong Wall’ to Block COVID-19 From China Had Holes."     AP News.    4 July 2020. 

C.C.   "Why Macau is Less Demanding of Democracy than Hong Kong."     The Economist.   15 September 2017. 

Eder, Steve, Henry Fountain, Michael H. Keller, Muyi Xiao, and Alexandra Stevenson.   "430,000 People Have Traveled From China to U.S. Since Coronavirus Surfaced."     The New York Times .   15 April 2020.    

James, Erin, and Saad B. Omer.   "Why a Travel Ban Won’t Stop the Coronavirus."     The National Interest .   3 February 2020. 

Nowrasteh, Alex, and Andrew C. Forrester.   "How U.S. Travel Restrictions on China Affected the Spread of COVID-19 in the United States."     CATO Institute.    8 June 2020. 

Wells, Chad R., Pratha Sah, Seyed M. Moghadas, Abhishek Pandey, Affan Shoukat, Yaning Wang, Zheng Wang, Lauren A. Meyers, Burton H. Singer, and Alison P. Galvani.   "Impact of International Travel and Border Control Measures on the Global Spread of the Novel 2019 Coronavirus Outbreak."    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.    31 March 2020. 

Whitehouse.gov .   "Proclamation on Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Nonimmigrants of Persons who Pose a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus."    31 January 2020. 

Whitehouse.gov .   "Remarks by President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Members of the Coronavirus Task Force in Press Conference."    29 February 2020. 

Whitehouse.gov .   "Remarks by President Trump in Press Conference."    14 July 2020. 

Whitehouse.gov .   "Remarks by President Trump in Press Briefing."    21 July 2020. 

By Nur Ibrahim

Nur Nasreen Ibrahim is a reporter with experience working in television, international news coverage, fact checking, and creative writing.

Article Tags

issued a travel ban

Trump Travel Ban Suit Brought by Visa Applicants to Move Ahead

By Mike Vilensky

Visa applicants alleging they were unlawfully denied entry to the US under former President Donald Trump’s travel ban can sue federal officials as a class, a judge ruled, the latest development in a long-running lawsuit over the contentious former policy.

The lead plaintiffs have argued since 2018 that Department of Homeland Security officials and other federal agency workers improperly implemented Trump’s restrictions on travel and immigration by ignoring a provision meant to grant waivers to some applicants. The group argues the denial of waivers caused them or their family members dislocation.

The US District Court for the Northern District of California certified as a class a group Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen who were refused visas pursuant to the Trump proclamation. The class consists of people who didn’t obtain a waiver, haven’t subsequently obtained a visa, and haven’t reapplied for a visa since the proclamation was revoked early in the Biden administration.

“The lack of a properly-administered waiver process is the common course of conduct that caused plaintiffs’ injuries, and the legal grounds for challenging that conduct are the same across the entire proposed class,” said Judge James Donato in a Tuesday order granting class certification.

Donato previously granted summary judgment to the lead plaintiffs on their Administrative Procedure Act claims, saying they had demonstrated that the government’s handling of the waiver program was arbitrary and capricious. He had ordered the parties to settle on a remedy.

The government had told the court it would provide “meaningful relief” to approximately 41,000 visa applicants who were denied a waiver under the travel ban, Donato said in his order Tuesday. The government had earlier proposed it would “notify these 41,000+ individuals directly” and and “advise them that if they wish to reapply for a non-immigrant visa, they may do so without paying a second fee,” according to minutes from a 2023 hearing.

“This all went up in smoke,” however, when government lawyers later said they didn’t agree to specific relief, Donato said.

“Needless to say, this is an egregious record of poor performance by the government,” he said.

The judge rejected the government’s argument that certifying the class would improperly involve the court in the government’s visa decision-making.

“Plaintiffs are not asking for, and the Court will not order, any specific outcomes for any particular visa applications,” he said. “The government’s arguments along the lines that ‘allowing this Court to tamper with individual consular decisions would violate the doctrine of consular nonreviewability’ have zero application and are way out of line.”

He ordered the parties to meet and confer on a proposed remedy.

Trump’s travel ban was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2018 ruling in Trump v. Hawaii with the justices splitting 5-4 along ideological lines.

Muslim Advocates and others represent the proposed class.

The case is Emami v. Mayorkas , N.D. Cal., 3:18-cv-01587, 3/26/24.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mike Vilensky at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Patrick Ambrosio at [email protected]

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Express & Star

  • Entertainment

Spain travel warning: UK tourists issued holiday warning as ten more beaches in Spain impose ban affecting holidaymakers

UK holidaymakers have been issued a Spain travel warning as more Spanish beaches have imposed a ban ahead of summer.

Watch more of our videos on Shots! and live on Freeview channel 276

Ten more beaches in Spain have imposed a ban that will impact holidaymakers this summer. The beaches have joined a growing campaign and banned people from smoking on their shores.

Spain now has 50 smoke-free beaches in the Balearics alone. The three major holiday islands of Majorca, Minorca and Ibiza are cracking down on the unhealthy habit with signs being placed on beaches across the coast.

Tourists and locals alike will have to follow the rules. According to the Spanish press the aim of the campaign is to prevent smoking in natural spaces, promote healthy habits and clamp down on litter caused by discarded cigarette butts.

Beaches of Muro near Alcudia in north east Mallorca and Port de Sant Miquel in Ibiza are the latest to impose the ban. Other municipalities that are not yet part of the initiative have also been encouraged to join.

Smoking is already prohibited on hundreds of beaches across Spain. Last summer Barcelona outlawed smoking on its beaches following a successful trial in 2021. Beach-goers including UK tourists who break the rule face fines of up to €2,000.

Last month, Spain's Medical Association released a document containing 20 new anti-smoking measures aimed towards tackling smoking and vaping in shared public spaces including beaches, restaurant terraces and queues. The proposal included recommendations to ban flavoured tobacco and vapes and upping the price of tobacco products.

It comes after UK holidaymakers have been warned of a lesser known seven-hour beach rule in Spain that could lead to a £1,000 fine. According to BenidormSeriously, tourists found on Benidorm's beaches or swimming in the sea between midnight and 7am can be fined between 750 and 1,200 euros - roughly up to £1,027.

The Health Plan Spain magazine states that these time restrictions on Benidorm's beaches are for safety reasons and to allow for beach cleaning. Most beaches in Benidorm have signs informing visitors what they can and cannot do. There are other rules in the area too such as you can't put down parasols or towels to save a spot for later - if you do, it could cost you 150 euros. Playing ball games outside of the special areas is also not allowed.

issued a travel ban

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IMAGES

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  3. TRAVEL BAN PROTEST NEW YORK

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  4. Travel Ban Law Legal Gavel Concept 3D Illustration

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  5. Trump travel ban leads to 80% decline in U.S. visa approvals from some

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  6. SBS Language

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COMMENTS

  1. Travel Advisories

    × External Link. You are about to leave travel.state.gov for an external website that is not maintained by the U.S. Department of State. Links to external websites are provided as a convenience and should not be construed as an endorsement by the U.S. Department of State of the views or products contained therein.

  2. Trump travel ban

    In addition to the travel ban, North Korea was the only country targeted with a reverse travel ban, prohibiting American citizens from traveling to North Korea. On January 20, 2021, newly inaugurated president Joe Biden issued a proclamation revoking the Trump travel bans, with the exception of the reverse travel ban prohibiting American ...

  3. Worldwide Caution

    Worldwide Caution. Due to increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests, the Department of State advises U.S. citizens overseas to exercise increased caution. U.S. citizens should: Stay alert in locations frequented by tourists.

  4. The Latest on U.S. Travel Restrictions

    What to Know: U.S. Travel Restrictions. Lauren Hard 📍 Reporting from New Jersey. Reuters. The new policy ends an 18-month ban on nonessential travel from 33 countries, including China, Brazil ...

  5. Travel Advisory Updates

    Office of the Spokesperson. April 19, 2021. State Department Travel Advisory Updates. In order to provide U.S. travelers detailed and actionable information to make informed travel decisions, the Department of State regularly assesses and updates our Travel Advisories, based primarily on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC ...

  6. These are the countries affected by the Trump travel ban

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  7. Latest US travel rules for Omicron: What you need to know

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  8. Live: Reactions after Supreme Court upholds travel ban

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  9. With Scant Information on Omicron, Biden Turned to Travel Ban to Buy

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  10. A Proclamation on Advancing the Safe Resumption of Global Travel During

    The continued spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global threat to our health and safety. COVID-19 has resulted in more than 733,000 deaths in the ...

  11. Places the U.S. Government Warns Not to Travel Right Now

    Places With a Level 4 Travel Advisory. These are the primary areas the U.S. government says not to travel to right now, in alphabetical order: Jump to Place: Afghanistan: The Central Asian country ...

  12. U.S. ends travel ban on foreign travelers who show proof of vaccination

    The announcement was welcomed by the travel industry, which has been pushing the government for more than a year to lift the travel ban on travelers from 33 countries. With the ban in place ...

  13. What Does the US State Department's Worldwide Travel Advisory Actually

    By Matt Ortile. October 20, 2023. Getty. On Thursday, October 19, the US State Department issued a worldwide travel advisory urging American citizens to "exercise increased caution" while ...

  14. State Department calls for Americans overseas to exercise caution

    0:00. 0:30. The U.S. State Department issued a worldwide travel advisory on Thursday, urging Americans overseas to exercise increased caution. The travel advisory cited "increased tensions in ...

  15. Everything you need to know about the travel ban: A timeline

    Attorneys for Hawaii filed the first lawsuit against the new travel ban - and on March 15, US District Court Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii blocked the President's new travel ban hours before ...

  16. What America Proved About Its Travel Ban

    By Yasmeen Serhan. Shannon Lin / The Atlantic. September 22, 2021. When the United States announced this week that it would relax its ban on travelers from Europe and other countries after 18 long ...

  17. The Facts on Trump's Travel Restrictions

    1.7K. President Donald Trump has made a number of misleading statements about his decision on Jan. 31 to impose travel restrictions related to the novel coronavirus epidemic. Trump has referred to ...

  18. COVID-19: Federal Travel Restrictions and Quarantine Measures

    President Trump has issued several proclamations to restrict the entry of aliens who were recently present in countries affected by COVID-19. A Proclamation on January 31, 2020, generally suspended the entry of any foreign national who had been ... Administration's imposition of the so-called "travel ban" on certain foreign nationals from ...

  19. The Supreme Court's travel ban decision, explained

    The Supreme Court today upheld the Trump administration's ban on travel from seven countries, voting 5-4 that the ban fell within the president's authority and was not discriminatory, even though five of the nations are majority Muslim. There were a number of legal challenges to the travel ban, but the State of Hawaii's challenge heavily ...

  20. Did Trump Ban All Travel From China at the Start of the Pandemic?

    In February 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump enforced a complete ban on travel from mainland China, a signature policy move that helped save many lives from the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S. A ...

  21. Travel ban lifted for all of Erie County

    Updated: Jan 15, 2024 / 02:52 PM EST. BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — The travel ban has been lifted for all of Erie County and downgraded to a travel advisory, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz ...

  22. A timeline of President Trump's travel bans

    March 7 - Hawaii immediately files lawsuit. Attorneys for Hawaii filed the first lawsuit against the new travel ban. The lawsuit asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order ...

  23. Trump Travel Ban Suit Brought by Visa Applicants to Move Ahead

    Mike Vilensky. Court certifies class action, orders parties to settle on remedy. Visa applicants alleging they were unlawfully denied entry to the US under former President Donald Trump's travel ban can sue federal officials as a class, a judge ruled, the latest development in a long-running lawsuit over the contentious former policy. The ...

  24. Spain travel warning: UK tourists issued holiday warning as ten more

    UK holidaymakers have been issued a Spain travel warning as more Spanish beaches have imposed a ban ahead of summer. News Sport Entertainment Black Country Festival Music Dining out Theatre ...