Sudan and South Sudan: Trump’s New Draft Travel Ban

As of 14 March 2025, the Trump Administration is considering implementing comprehensive travel restrictions affecting citizens from 43 countries, including Sudan and South Sudan.

An internal memo, obtained and reviewed first by the New York Times and then by Reuters, suggests that the Trump Administration has included new countries in a draft of a 2.0 travel ban. Per the memo, the countries on the list would be sorted into three different tiers: red, orange, and yellow.

Red List (full visa suspensions): 11 countries, including Sudan, may face complete visa suspensions.These countries would be flatly barred from entering the US. This list was formed by the State Department a few weeks ago and changes could well be made.

Orange List (partial visa suspensions): 10 countries, including South Sudan, could experience sharp restrictions on specific visa categories that would impact tourist and student visas as well as other immigrant visas, with some exceptions.

Yellow List (conditional measures): 22 countries have been given a 60-day window to address identified security and information-sharing deficiencies to avoid potential visa issuance restrictions, or else each country risks being moved up to the other categories. Citizens traveling to the US from these countries would be subjected to ‘mandatory in-person interviews’ in order to receive a visa. 

Under the ‘Red List’, Sudan

Under the ‘Orange List’, South Sudan is one of 10 countries that may face restrictions on specific visa categories rather than a full visa suspension. However, the details of which visa categories would be affected have not been specified yet.

This initiative is part of a broader effort to enhance national security by intensifying vetting processes and addressing perceived security threats arising from inadequate passport security and insufficient traveler data sharing.

Additionally, the administration proposes replacing the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program with a ‘gold card’ visa, priced at USD5 million. This initiative aims to attract high-net-worth individuals, stimulate economic investment, and create jobs within the US.

Trump issued an executive order on 20 January requiring intensified security vetting of any foreigners seeking admission to the US to detect national security threats. That order directed several cabinet members to submit by 21 March a list of countries from which travel should be partly or fully suspended because their “vetting and screening information is so deficient.’

These proposals are pending final approval from key administration officials, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The State Department has yet to comment on the potential policy changes.

Trump first travel ban (2018)

The travel ban reinstates President Donald Trump’s first travel ban on seven majority-Muslim nations, that also included Sudan, a policy that went through several iterations before it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018. While on the campaign trail in 2024, Trump vowed to reinstate the former travel ban several times.

The ban barred entry of Syrian refugees and temporarily suspended the entry of individuals from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Eventually the Supreme Court permitted a rewritten notion in which citizens from Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen continued to be subject to the ban. They later upheld the ban in 2018. These countries could potentially be at risk again, should a 2.0 list be finalised.