8:11 p.m. ET, June 26, 2018
Who's affected by Trump's travel ban, by the numbers
From CNN's Aaron Kessler
Now that President Donald Trump's travel ban has the Supreme Court's blessing, the fate of people in the seven already designated countries appears dire when it comes to their chances of coming to the United States.
While it's difficult to pin down who may or may not intend to visit, study or even become an immigrant to America, the most recent data available from the US State Department provides
a window into ballpark figures.
During the 2017 fiscal year, the government issued about 87,000 "non-immigrant" visas from the seven nations affected by the administration's travel ban. Those include people ranging from tourists to students to those doing business in the United States (There were 9.7 million such visas issued worldwide during the fiscal year).
While much of the attention has focused on the ban's aim at Muslim-majority nations, the largest contingent of non-immigrant visas actually went to Venezuela. In fact, Venezuela had nearly twice as many visas as all the other countries combined.
Here are the individual countries broken down:
- Iran — 19,801
- North Korea — 55
- Syria — 5,411
- Libya — 1,552
- Yemen — 2,919
- Somalia — 276
- Venezuela — 56,720
The picture is quite different for those seeking to immigrate. Of about 20,000 immigrant visas granted in fiscal year 2017 to those coming from the seven countries, the largest contingents are actually from Iran and Yemen, State Department records show. Venezuela is in the middle of the pack, roughly the same as those from Syria.
The total number of immigrant visas worldwide by the US was about 560,000 during that period, so the seven countries still make up just a fraction of the total.