With the stroke of a pen, President Joe Biden has ended his predecessor’s ban on travelers entering the United States from several Middle Eastern and African nations, fulfilling a campaign pledge to dismantle policies seen as discriminatory against Muslims. 

A week after taking office in January 2017, President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syrian, Sudan and Yemen — that he said posed a national security threat. The hastily announced travel ban created scenes of chaos at international airports, a slew of federal lawsuits and protests across the country. 

Early iterations of the travel ban, which followed Trump’s campaign trail comments calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” were struck down by federal courts. The Supreme Court in 2018 upheld a revised version that also barred travelers from North Korea and certain Venezuelan government officials. Last year, the Trump administration imposed additional restrictions on travel from Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania. Iraq was dropped from the list of banned countries in 2017.

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, said Biden’s decision to overturn the Trump-era travel ban Wednesday sends a clear message that the United States will once again be a welcoming nation for immigrants and refugees.