Tuesday night, President Trump issued a new proclamation expanding the travel ban from 19 countries to 39 countries. Laos is now included in the fully banned country list and was previously listed as a partially banned country, preventing all immigration and select non-immigrant travel from Laos. Of note for Asian American and Pacific Islander communities is the inclusion of Tonga in the list of partially banned countries.
The proclamation also revokes the exceptions for immediate relatives of US citizens and adoptions from these countries, but claims to allow for case-by-case waivers. This means that US citizens can no longer sponsor their immediate family members from Laos or adopt children from these countries for the foreseeable future.
This proclamation comes on top of a new United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) memo that pauses naturalization and other immigration benefit requests for people from the countries identified in the June 4, 2025 proclamation, which included Laos. The memo also pauses all asylum applications and requires USCIS to re-review already approved benefits for people who entered the country on or after Jan. 1, 2021.
Quyên Đinh, Executive Director of SEARAC, responds:
“This expanded travel ban continues this Administration’s racist and xenophobic policies and attacks on our communities. This proclamation explicitly prevents Black and Brown immigrants and Southeast Asians from immigrating to the United States or naturalizing here. And the Administration does this while turning around and prioritizing the resettlement of White Afrikaners. These policies do not make our country safer. They deepen trauma, fuel fear, and uphold this Administration’s clear racial and white nationalist ideologies.
The expanded travel ban will be devastating for Hmong, Lao, Mien, and other communities from Laos, who have already endured decades of displacement, war, and separation. By shutting the door on family reunification, this Administration is tearing and keeping families apart and denying Southeast Asian Americans the basic dignity of safety, stability, and belonging.”
