On Jan. 27, 2017, Trump signed Executive Order 13769, suspending entry for 90 days of nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen), suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days and halting the entry of Syrian refugees indefinitely.
Travelers who were in the air when the order was signed were held on arrival. AFP counted at least 109 people held at U.S. airports despite valid visas, and about 300 stopped or detained worldwide, over the first weekend. Thousands of protesters gathered at major airports across the country, and four federal judges moved to halt deportations. Trump issued a statement saying, “This is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting.”
A federal court in Washington state blocked the order, and the Ninth Circuit refused to reinstate it. Trump replaced it with a second order and then a September 2017 proclamation, which the Supreme Court upheld 5-4 in Trump v. Hawaii on June 26, 2018.
Correction (October 14, 2026): Two dead source links (an ACLU timeline and a Supreme Court PDF) were replaced with the Federal Register text of the order, the Supreme Court docket and opinion, and news coverage. The earlier version said “thousands” of travelers were detained at airports; contemporaneous reporting supports a figure of at least 109 held on arrival in the U.S. and about 300 worldwide, so the entry now uses those numbers.