On January 31, 2020, President Trump signed a presidential proclamation or Travel Ban 4.0 . This expands the Muslim Ban to include green card applicants (‘immigrant visa’) from six additional countries. The United States will suspend issuance of all immigrant visas for individuals from Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar (Burma), and Nigeria, and diversity visas for individuals from Sudan and Tanzania.
Tourists, visitors, fiancés. students, and others applying for nonimmigrant visas or temporary visas are not affected. Instead, it targets individuals who use immigrant visas to keep their families together here in the United States.
Any visas granted before the proclamation’s effective date, February 22, 2020, will be honored by the United States. Individuals with valid visas issued before that date should not be affected when traveling to the United States. The original restrictions for Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, North Korea and Venezuela under Presidential Proclamation 9645 from 2017 remain in effect.
It is possible to apply for a waiver of the restrictions but difficult to succeed. You should definitely seek advice from an immigration attorney. A waiver may be granted if a foreign national demonstrates to the consular officer’s or CBP official’s satisfaction that:
(a) Denying entry would cause the foreign national undue hardship;
(b) Entry would not pose a threat to the national security or public safety of the U.S.; and
(c) Entry would be in the national interest
Here is a summary of all the current restrictions.
| Travel Ban 3.0: Presidential Proclamation 9645 dated Sept. 24, 2017 Travel Ban 4.0: Presidential Proclamation dated Jan. 31, 2020 Nationals of 7 countries are currently subject to various travel restrictions contained in Travel Ban 3.0. Further restrictions will be placed on nationals of 6 more countries as of Feb. 21, 2020, per Presidential Proclamation 4.0. The restrictions are outlined in the following table, subject to exceptions and waivers set forth in the Proclamations. |
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| Country and Which Ban | Nonimmigrant Visas | Immigrant and Diversity Visas |
| Iran (3.0) | No nonimmigrant visas except F, M, and J visas | No immigrant or diversity visas |
| Eritrea (4.0) | Unrestricted | No immigrant visas* |
| Kyrgyzstan (4.0) | Unrestricted | No immigrant visas* |
| Libya (3.0) | No B-1, B-2, and B-1/B-2 visas | No immigrant or diversity visas |
| Myanmar (Burma) (4.0) | Unrestricted | No immigrant visas* |
| Nigeria (4.0) | Unrestricted | No immigrant visas* |
| North Korea (3.0) | No nonimmigrant visas | No immigrant or diversity visas |
| Somalia (3.0) | No immigrant or diversity visas | |
| Sudan (4.0) | Unrestricted | No diversity visas |
| Syria (3.0) | No nonimmigrant visas | No immigrant or diversity visas |
| Tanzania (4.0) | Unrestricted | No diversity visas |
| Venezuela (3.0) | No B-1, B-2 or B-1/B-2 visas of any kind for officials of the following government agencies Ministry of Interior, Justice, and Peace; the Administrative Service of Identification, Migration, and Immigration; the Corps of Scientific Investigations, Judicial and Criminal; the Bolivarian Intelligence Service; and the People’s Power Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and their immediate family members. | Unrestricted |
| Yemen (3.0) | No B-1, B-2, and B-1/B-2 visas | No immigrant or diversity visas |
