As one of his first acts in office, President Donald Trump signed executive order 13769 on January 27, 2017. Referred to as the "Muslim ban," it barred entry into the US for most people from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days. It also halted entry for refugees from the Syrian conflict indefinitely, and placed a 120-day moratorium on refugees entering from all other nations.

By the thousands, people flocked to major US international airports, including JFK in New York and LAX in Los Angeles to protest what they saw as open Islamophobia. International leaders, US diplomats, Catholic bishops, Jewish organizations, Nobel laureates and UN officials all decried the measure.

About 50 lawsuits against the ban were launched following its announcement. Just two days later, a judge in New York issued a temproary injunction. Then on February 9, 2017, a federal judge in the state of Washington issued a nationwide temporary restraining order against the rule. The government filed an appeal, but it was rejected by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In response to legal challenges, on March 6, 2017, Trump signed what he called a "watered down, politically correct version" of his previous travel ban. The new ban allowed permanent residents of the US to travel back and forth to visit their families and permitted travel to those who had already been granted visas but had not yet arrived in the US, a group hit particularly hard by the first ban.

On March 15, a federal judge in Hawaii issued a temporary restraining order against the new law, the same day a federal judge in Maryland came to a similar conclusion. In early June, the Trump administration filed an appeal. On June 26, US Supreme Court decided to partially lift injunctions against the ban as it waited to hear oral arguments against these injunctions in October 2017.

In September 2017, Trump responded to criticism that his travel bans purposely targeted only Muslims by removing Iraq and Sudan from the list and adding non-Muslim majority nations such as Venezuela and North Korea. Though it did add mostly-Muslim Chad. In December, the Supreme Court allowed the ban to stand until it made its final decision on the case.

On June 26, 2018, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 (along conservative/liberal lines) to let the ban stand. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts made it clear that the court was not ruling on the "soundness" of the policy, but that the president had "set forth a sufficient national security justification." Protestors gathered on the court's steps comforted one another after the ruling.