INITIAL ALERTWebsite
URGENT: U.S. Entry Restrictions Effective January 1, 2026
A White House Proclamation issued on December 16, 2025 establishes expanded restrictions on entry into the United States for nationals of certain countries, effective January 1, 2026. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will begin to enforce these restrictions starting January 1.
This advisory is intended for Penn administrators, faculty, department staff, and campus partners who support international students, scholars, and employees, and to support coordinated, accurate advising. ISSS will be in direct contact with individuals who may be impacted.
What is changing: The Proclamation widens full entry restrictions to include nationals from Burkina Faso, Laos, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Syria. Existing full restrictions on nationals of Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen remain in effect. Partial restrictions on nationals of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela remain in effect.
What this means: The entry restrictions apply only to entry into the U.S. If you are currently in the United States, you are not affected unless you travel internationally and attempt to re-enter. Visas will not automatically be revoked.
Our guidance: Non-essential international travel should be deferred for individuals who may be impacted, particularly those with pending visa applications or upcoming travel plans. Departments should discourage non-essential international travel and refer travelers to ISSS before plans are finalized. We ask that supervisors and academic advisors remain flexible with academic and employment start dates for individuals who may experience delays in arrival or reentry.
If you are a citizen of one of the affected countries, please contact ISSS at isss@global.upenn.edu before making any travel plans. ISSS will continue to monitor the situation and post updates to the Penn Global website.
This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.
Penn ISSS's choice to address the advisory primarily to 'Penn administrators, faculty, department staff, and campus partners' rather than directly to affected students is an unusual framing — Penn appears to be using the public advisory as a coordinating document for the broader institutional response while contacting affected students individually, which preserves student privacy while ensuring the wider Penn community has accurate information
The advisory's inclusion of partial-restrictions countries (Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela) is significant because partial restrictions are often overlooked in coverage focused on the full-restrictions list; Penn's enumeration ensures that students from those countries also receive proper advising
The explicit clarification that 'visas will not automatically be revoked' is a deliberate distinction from the April 2025 SEVIS-termination wave; Penn ISSS is signaling that the December 16 proclamation operates on the reentry side rather than through SEVIS terminations, which is a meaningfully different legal mechanism
The request that 'supervisors and academic advisors remain flexible with academic and employment start dates' addresses a practical institutional reality: faculty mentors and HR offices needed to be prepared to accommodate delayed arrivals, which had not been a routine consideration before 2025