Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, it looks like the President of the United States, Mr. Donald Trump, has further restricted visas for certain nationals and just visas generally going to the United States. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from whitehouse.gov, that is whitehouse.gov under the headline: Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Further Restricts and Limits the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the Security of the United States. Quoting directly: "Strengthening National Security through Common Sense Restrictions Based on Data: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed a Proclamation expanding and strengthening entry restrictions on nationals from countries with demonstrated, persistent, and severe deficiencies in screening, vetting, and information-sharing to protect the nation from national security and public safety threats. 

• The proclamation continues the full restrictions and entry limitations of nationals from the original 12 high-risk countries established under Proclamation 10949: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of Congo" - so Burma, just FYI, that's Myanmar, so something to bear in mind, - "Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.
• It adds full restrictions and entry limitations on five additional countries based on recent analysis: Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, and Syria.
• It also adds full restrictions and entry limitations on individuals holding Palestinian-Authority-issued travel documents.
• It imposes full restrictions and entry limitations on two countries that were previously subject to partial restrictions: Laos and Sierra Leone. 
• The proclamation continues partial restrictions of nationals from 4 of the 7 original high-risk countries: Burundi, Cuba, Togo, and Venezuela. 
  • Because Turkmenistan has engaged productively with the United States and demonstrated significant process since the previous Proclamation, this new Proclamation lifts the ban on its non-immigrant visas, while maintaining the suspension of entry for Turkmen nationals as immigrants.
  • It adds partial restrictions and entry limitations on 15 additional countries: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Cote D'Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
  • The Proclamation includes exceptions for lawful permanent residents, existing visa holders, certain Visa categories like athletes and diplomats, and individuals whose entry serves U.S. national interests.
    • The Proclamation narrows broad family-based immigrant visa carve-outs that carry demonstrated fraud risks, while preserving case-by-case waivers."

In another video I'm making contemporaneously with this one, I'm going to get into some of this carve-out stuff for family-based, especially as it pertains to Southeast Asia, pertaining to Laos and as the Americans currently still refer to it, Burma, AKA Myanmar. But that said, I'll get into kind of the specifics on that in another video - probably more than one video actually. But the point of this video is yeah, they are again expanding out the restrictions, they are expanding it out by nationality and they're expanding it out sort of by subject matter and context, meaning if the underlying country at issue; if you go through and read the rest of it, they talk about things like Citizenship by Investment without background checks which I have to wonder if a country like Dominica which is a tiny little island down in the Caribbean, I have to wonder if that's not one of the reasons - it's  somewhat semi-famous for so-called Citizenship by Investment programs - I have to wonder if their program isn't maybe having an effect insofar as they are being included on this list for that purpose. That said, hard to say. 

The thing to take away from this video is it may have practical ramifications. Now what country, which is very important for the purposes of this channel, is not mentioned? Thailand. Thailand remains the US's oldest ally in Asia and one of its staunchest Treaty allies in the region, so I don't foresee major changes with respect to Thai nationals or visa processing within Thailand specifically. That being said, this may have an impact on nationals from countries very close by Thailand who may have otherwise wanted to process through Thailand or process through an Embassy close by to Thailand. So again, I'll be making videos contemporaneously with this one discussing that as it specifically pertains to Laos and Myanmar; stay tuned for that. That said, the thing to take away from this video is yes, restrictions are being expanded.

Look, across the board, we are now basically looking ahead into 2026 and basically, we are going into the midterm elections. It's going to be a minimum of roughly 3 years before the end of the Trump Administration, that's just basically how this is going to play out. And the thing to understand here is, whatever you think of him, Trump is more restrictive on immigration. He's going to scrutinize more; his administration is going to scrutinize more. I expect there is probably going to be more of this type of thing if you are looking at it from the standpoint of trend lines; I expect there's going to be more of this type of thing, not less. That being said, we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.