Executive Order 13769
Executive Order 13769, titled "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States", was an executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump. Except for the extent to which it was blocked by various courts, it was in effect from January 27, 2017, until March 6, 2017, when it was superseded by Executive Order 13780, a second order sharing the same title.
Part of a series of executive actions, Executive Order 13769 lowered the number of refugees to be admitted into the United States in 2017 to 50,000, suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days, suspended the entry of Syrian refugees indefinitely, directed some cabinet secretaries to suspend entry of those whose countries do not meet adjudication standards under U.S. immigration law for 90 days, and included exceptions on a case-by-case basis. The Department of Homeland Security listed these countries as Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Iraq was also included until it was dropped following sharp criticism from the Iraqi government and promises of improved vetting of Iraqi citizens in collaboration with the Iraqi government. More than 700 travelers were detained, and up to 60,000 visas were "provisionally revoked".
The signing of the executive order provoked widespread condemnation and protests and resulted in legal intervention against the enforcement of the order. Critics referred to it as a "Muslim ban," because President Trump had previously called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, and because all of the affected countries had a Muslim majority, although the affected Muslims were only 12% of the global Muslim population. Critics proposed that this was due to Trump having business ties with Muslim majority countries which were excluded. A nationwide temporary restraining order was issued on February 3, 2017, in the case Washington v. Trump, which was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on February 9, 2017. Consequently, the Department of Homeland Security stopped enforcing portions of the order and the State Department re-validated visas that had been previously revoked. Later, other orders were signed by President Trump and superseded Executive Order 13769. On June 26, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the third Executive Order and its accompanying travel ban in a 5–4 decision, with the majority opinion being written by Chief Justice John Roberts.
On January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden, shortly after he was inaugurated, revoked Executive Order 13780 and related proclamations with Presidential Proclamation 10141. On January 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, Trump signed Executive Order 14161, titled "Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats". This new order was described by critics as a revival of Executive Order 13780's travel ban, though it was viewed as more expansive in comparison.
Background
Statutory authorization and related prohibitions
Key provisions of executive orders 13769 and 13780 cite to paragraph of Title 8 of the United States Code § 1182, which discusses inadmissible aliens. Paragraph states:Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.
The act that underlies this, known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, was amended by the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which included a provision stating
No person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person's race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence.
The language in the INA of 1965 is among the reasons District of Maryland Judge Chuang issued a temporary restraining order blocking Section 2 of Executive Order 13780.
Restrictions by the Obama administration
In 1986, the Visa Waiver Program was initiated by President Ronald Reagan, allowing alien nationals of select countries to travel to the United States for up to 90 days without a visa, in return for reciprocal treatment of U.S. nationals. By 2016, the program had been extended to 38 countries. In 2015, Congress passed a Consolidated Appropriations Act to fund the government, and Obama signed the bill into law. The Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, which was previously passed by the House of Representatives as H.R. 158, was incorporated into the Consolidated Appropriations Act as Division O, Title II, Section 203. The Trump administration's executive order relied on H.R. 158, as enacted. The Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act originally affected four countries: Iraq, Syria, and countries on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. Foreigners who were nationals of those countries, or who had visited those countries since 2011, were required to obtain a visa to enter the United States, even if they were nationals or dual-nationals of the 38 countries participating in the Visa Waiver Program. Libya, Yemen, and Somalia were added later as "countries of concern" by Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson during the Obama administration. The executive order refers to these countries as "countries designated pursuant to Division O, Title II, Section 203 of the 2016 consolidated Appropriations Act". Prior to this, in 2011, additional background checks were imposed on the nationals of Iraq.Trump's press secretary Sean Spicer cited these existing restrictions as evidence that the executive order was based on outstanding policies saying that the seven targeted countries were "put first and foremost" by the Obama administration. Fact-checkers at PolitiFact.com, The New York Times, and The Washington Post said the Obama restrictions cannot be compared to this executive order because they were in response to a credible threat and were not a blanket ban on all individuals from those countries, and concluded that the Trump administration's statements about the Obama administration were misleading and false.
Trump campaign and administration statements before the order's signing
became the U.S. president on January 20, 2017. He has long claimed that terrorists are using the U.S. refugee resettlement program to enter the country. As a candidate Trump's "Contract with the American Voter" pledged to suspend immigration from "terror-prone regions". Trump-administration officials then described the executive order as fulfilling this campaign promise. Speaking of Trump's agenda as implemented through executive orders and the judicial appointment process, White House chief strategist Steve Bannon stated: "If you want to see the Trump agenda it's very simple. It was all in the speeches. He's laid out an agenda with those speeches, with the promises he made, and job every day is to just to execute on that. He's maniacally focused on that."During his initial election campaign Trump had proposed a temporary, conditional, and "total and complete" ban on Muslims entering the United States. His proposal was met by opposition by U.S. politicians including Mike Pence and James Mattis.
On June 12, in reference to the Orlando nightclub shooting that occurred on the same date, Trump used Twitter to renew his call for a Muslim immigration ban. On June 13 Trump proposed to suspend immigration from "areas of the world" with a history of terrorism, a change from his previous proposal to suspend Muslim immigration to the U.S; the campaign did not announce the details of the plan at the time, but Jeff Sessions, an advisor to Trump campaign on immigration, said the proposal was a statement of purpose to be supplied with details in subsequent months.
On July 15, Pence, who as governor of Indiana attempted to suspend settlement of Syrian refugees to the state but was prevented from doing so by the courts, said that decision was based on the fall 2015 FBI assessment that there is risk associated with bringing in refugees. Pence cited the infiltration of Iraqi refugees in Bowling Green Kentucky who were arrested in 2011 for attempting to provide weapons to ISIS and Obama's suspension of the Iraqi refugee program in response as precedent for a U.S. President's "temporarily suspend immigration from countries where terrorist influence and impact represents a threat to the United States".
On July 17, Trump participated in an interview on 60 Minutes that sought to clarify whether Trump's position on a Muslim ban had changed; when asked whether he had changed position on the Muslim ban, he said: "—no, I—Call it whatever you want. We'll call it territories, OK?" Trump's response would later be interpreted by Judge Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia as acknowledging "the conceptual link between a Muslim ban and the " in her ruling finding the executive order likely violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
In a speech on August 4 to a Maine audience Trump called for stopping the practice of admitting refugees from among the most dangerous places in the world; Trump specifically opposed Somali immigration to Minnesota and Maine, describing the Somali refugee program, which has resettled tens of thousands of refugees in the U.S., as creating "a rich pool of potential recruiting targets for Islamic terror groups". In Minnesota 10 men of Somali or Oromo family backgrounds were charged with conspiring to travel to the Middle East to join ISIS and 20 young men traveled to Somalia to join a terror group in 2007. Trump went on to list alleged terrorist plots by immigrants from Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, along with incidents of alleged terrorism plots or acts by immigrants from countries not among the seven specified by the eventual executive order such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, and Morocco.
In a speech on August 15 Trump listed terrorism attacks in the United States as justification for his proposals for increased ideological testing and a temporary ban on immigration from countries with a history of terrorism; on this point, the Los Angeles Times analysis observed Trump "failed to mention that a number of the attackers were U.S. citizens, or had come to the U.S. as children". In the speech, Trump vowed to task the departments of State and Homeland Security to identify regions hostile to the United States such that the additional screening was justified to identify those who pose a threat.
In a speech on August 31 Trump vowed to "suspend the issuance of visas" to "places like Syria and Libya". On September 4 vice presidential candidate Mike Pence defended the Trump–Pence ticket's plan to suspend immigration from countries or regions of the world with a history of terrorism on Meet the Press. He gave Syria as an example of such a country or region: "Donald Trump and I believe that we should suspend the Syrian refugee program" because, Pence said, Syria was a region of the world that was "imploding into civil war" and had "been compromised by terrorism".
In late November following the Ohio State attack, President-elect Trump claimed the attacker was a "Somali refugee who should not have been in" the U.S. In early December he said the attack showed immigration security is national security when stating goals for his administration. The attacker injured 11 before he was killed by police. The attacker was a Somali-born refugee who spent seven years in Pakistan, the country from which he immigrated to the U.S. with his family on a refugee visa. The attacker was a legal permanent resident living in the U.S. reportedly inspired by but not in direct contact with ISIS. In an interview given for a feature in the Ohio State student newspaper approximately two months before the attack, the eventual attacker expressed fear about Donald Trump's rhetoric toward Muslims and what it might mean for immigrants and refugees.
In an interview broadcast the day he would sign the order President Trump told the Christian Broadcasting Network that Christian refugees would be given priority in terms of refugee status in the United States after saying that Syrian Christians were "horribly treated" by his predecessor, Barack Obama. Christians make up very small fractions of the Syrian refugees who have registered with the UN High Commission for Refugees in Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon; those registered represent the pool from which the U.S. selects refugees.
António Guterres, then-UN high commissioner for refugees, said in October 2015 that many Syrian Christians have ties to the Christian community in Lebanon and have sought the UN's services in smaller numbers. During 2016 the U.S. had admitted almost as many Christian as Muslim refugees. Pew research also pointed out that over 99% of admitted Syrian refugees were Muslim and less than 1% Christian, despite the demographics of Syria being estimated by Pew to be 93% Muslim and 5% Christian. Senator Chris Coons accused Trump of spreading "false facts" and "alternative facts".
In January 2016, the Department of Justice, on request of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, provided a list of 580 public international terrorism and terrorism-related convictions from September 11, 2001 through the end of 2014. Based on this data and news reports and other open-source information the committee in June determined that at least 380 among the 580 convicted were foreign-born. The publicly released version of Trump's August 15 speech quoted that report. Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute said the list of 580 convictions shared by DOJ was problematic in that "241 of the 580 convictions were not even for terrorism offences"; they started with a terrorism tip but ended up with a non-terrorism charge like "receiving stolen cereal". The day after Executive Order 13780 was signed, Ohio Congressman Bill Johnson said 60 individuals of the 380 foreign-born individuals or 580 total individuals were from the seven countries implicated by Executive Order 13769, but because Iraq is not among the six countries implicated in Executive Order 13780, Johnson suggested the number may be lower than 60 for countries implicated by that executive order. Nowrasteh notes 40 of the 580 individuals were foreign-born immigrants or non-immigrants convicted of planning, attempting, or carrying out terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. He contrasts this figure with EO 13780's statement that "ince 2001, hundreds of persons born abroad have been convicted of terrorism-related crimes in the United States", which he says requires including planned acts outside the United States" because "If the people counted as 'terrorism-related' convictions were really convicted of planning, attempting, or carrying out a terrorist attack on U.S. soil then supporters of Trump's executive order would call them 'terrorism convictions' and exclude the 'related'."