Donald Trump's immigration restrictions are mainly aimed at people from nations most exposed to relocation due to climate-related catastrophes, a Guardian review indicates.

While the Trump administration advances measures to increase use of planet-warming fossil fuels, large numbers of individuals must leave their homes because of intensified storms, floods and droughts linked to the climate emergency.

Out of 39 countries facing full or partial US entry limits under the Trump administration, 22 fall within the top quarter of nations most susceptible to climate effects, based on a Guardian examination of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative data that measures climate vulnerability across regions.

“Nearly all of the most vulnerable countries face a ban or visa pause,” noted Danielle Wood, an associate professor at Notre Dame. Immigrants from Chad and Niger, identified as the two most climate-vulnerable nations globally per the index, face complete US entry bars, along with those from Sudan, Somalia and Sierra Leone, which also rank among the 10 most exposed countries.

Honduras ranks among the most vulnerable half of nations and has experienced intensified rainstorms, droughts, floods and coastal erosion recently. After Hurricane Mitch struck, killing 7,000 people, one impacted family examined their destroyed home and saw a path forward by relocating to the US.

Evelyn, who preferred not to give her full name, was a teenager when Mitch hit in 1998 and remembers her relatives in New York City urging her mother to bring her and her sister to the US.

“There were bodies and dead animals floating in the water, the house was destroyed, the furniture was all gone - doors, windows gone. It was so, so sad,” said Evelyn. “I got sick because of the mosquitoes too. My uncle and aunt were just like: ‘OK, just bring the kids over here, don’t stay. It’s dangerous.’”

Storms as destructive as Mitch have become more probable now as the atmosphere and oceans have warmed quickly from fossil fuel combustion.

Yet Trump’s limits on immigration and asylum have made it much tougher for people like Evelyn to reach the US. “Every day it’s more barriers,” said Evelyn, who still lives in New York and has two daughters studying at university. “It’s sad to know that people will not be able to apply for a status or something to help their situation and also help the people back home.”

The administration has also tried to end temporary protected status for people from Honduras and 12 other nations already living in the US, with nearly half of these countries placed by Notre Dame among the most climate-vulnerable locations worldwide.

The US supreme court is reviewing an appeal regarding TPS revocation for residents from two affected nations: Syria and Haiti, which have faced recent droughts and hurricanes respectively, plus violent unrest. Environmental threats in these and other countries were referenced by the federal government when approving TPS to permit people to stay in the US.

But the current administration’s broad entry bans will “keep the radical Islamic terrorists out of our country” and fix vetting shortfalls, Trump has stated. The state department was asked for comment on climate-related immigration.

Most banned countries sit at the center of a growing climate displacement emergency, with the United Nations estimating that severe heatwaves, droughts, storms and floods have displaced 250 million people worldwide over the past decade, or about 70,000 displacements daily.

It remains unclear how many of these individuals cross borders, since most movement occurs inside countries - in 2025, nearly 30 million people were forced by disasters to relocate within their nations, recent data show. Wildfires, such as those that destroyed parts of Los Angeles last year, caused the largest share of such internal moves.

But experts concur that a rising number of so-called “climate refugees” are leaving their home countries as the planet overheats. No official routes exist for this, however, as neither US law nor the UN’s 1951 refugee convention recognizes environmental disasters as grounds for protection in another nation.

“People are being displaced by climate change, the number is growing every year and, increasingly, the displacements are permanent,” said Jocelyn Perry, program manager of the climate displacement program at Refugees International. Residents of developing countries now restricted by the US struggle with crop losses, sea level rise and other disruptions worsened by global heating, she noted.

“A house in Florida may be able to withstand a category four hurricane, but there are people around the world unable to deal with that in any way and they are bearing the brunt of this,” said Perry.

Advocates note that people are often displaced first by a climate-driven disaster, which then triggers a related problem such as violence that prompts them to leave their country. War or persecution, unlike climate change, can serve as a basis for asylum claims.

“Climate change is not necessarily the first issue that displaced people raise,” said Perry. “But if, say, a family’s crops fail for three years and they have to move to an urban area and they can’t find work or it’s dangerous there, climate change has played a key role in their movement - even if their asylum claim is because of the violence that follows.”

The US is the world’s largest historical emitter of planet-heating pollution. However, Trump has rejected any need to address the climate crisis, which he labels a “hoax” and “bullshit”, and has insisted the world stay tied to fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has effectively halted the US refugee program except for white South Africans and cut overseas aid that eases effects of a warming world, such as disease spread. Reductions to USAID led by Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, are projected to cause about 4.5 million young child deaths in places like sub-Saharan Africa over the next five years.

“All of these actions will increase displacement, and the Trump administration will try to dissuade people from coming to the US border through cruel and inhumane policies, third-country deportation and child detention,” said Perry.

“I don’t know if that will deter people if the other option is risking death or injury at home, though, so people will still make that journey,” she added. “We are seeing political decisions in the US and in Europe, too, that will leave more people stuck in vulnerable places and unable to respond. With worsening climate change, this is going to be horrific for the rest of the world.”

The one element of the US immigration system that does consider the climate crisis is TPS, which grants foreign nationals already in the US renewable one- or two-year stays if war or natural disaster strikes their homeland.

Syrians received TPS in 2024 partly due to declining wheat output and “drought-like conditions” that have affected the country recently. Ethiopia has suffered severe drought and flooding that displaced more than 4 million people, according to its TPS status from the same year, while about 350,000 Haitians in the US would face return to one of the countries “most affected by extreme weather events”, per a 2023 TPS extension decision.

The Trump administration has ended TPS for many countries, though, with courts set to rule on several cases, including the supreme court matter involving Syria and Haiti. “There are tens of thousands of people who have fled because of natural disasters,” said Geoffrey Pipoly, a lawyer representing six plaintiffs from Haiti, which has endured two major hurricanes since 2016. “Haiti has been smack dab in the middle of this for decades.”

Even those still covered by TPS face uncertainty. A doctor originally from Sudan, who asked not to be named, said he left for the US after drought worsened conflict in his country, which has been in civil war for the past three years.

“It’s too dry, there’s not enough water, the lands were just left without anyone to cultivate them and millions have fled,” he said. “The conflicts are affected by climate change and the difficulty of people sharing resources in that part of the world. I did not see any hope in things improving.”

Sudan remains on the TPS list but only until October. “It would be very, very tough, very difficult to go back,” said the doctor, who has not yet heard if a work permit application succeeded. “One of the reasons people come to the US is because they think there is a law, everybody is treated equally. But I think this is no longer the case.”

The supreme court decision is expected by late June or early July.

Attempts to revise the US immigration system to account for the climate crisis have failed so far. The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act defines a “refugee” as anyone unable to return home due to a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political viewpoint.

It excludes protections for those displaced by environmental harm - a gap researchers and advocates have long called to close. In 2021 and 2023, Democratic lawmakers sought to enact such a fix via the Climate Displaced Persons Act, which would update the INA to offer lasting legal status and resettlement aid to people forced to move to the US due to climate disasters.

“As disasters supercharged by climate change cause disruption and devastation around the world, the Trump administration wants to both destroy programs meant to build more resilient countries and make it impossible for those without recourse to seek refuge in the United States,” said Massachusetts senator Ed Markey, who introduced the measure both times.

Such legislation is needed now more than ever, Markey said. “Trump’s attacks on foreign aid programs, his disregard of climate science and his attacks on immigrants all come from the same playbook,” he said.

The bill would also require agencies to gather data on climate-related displacement. That could address a major obstacle to creating and sustaining protections for those affected, said Hannah Flamm, deputy director of policy at the International Refugee Assistance Program.

“There’s vast data globally on internal displacement on account of climate, but there’s virtually no data on international displacement on account of climate,” she said, adding that Markey’s proposal is a “valiant effort”.

“Whether or not it passes, it is critical to mobilize advocacy and to reinforce the need to meet this need,” she said.

Given the current political climate, however, the chance of a new climate migration framework looks slim. “I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of optimism right now that any change could occur anytime in the near future,” Perry said.

Amid a wider effort for mass deportations by the administration, “climate has been put on the back burner to safeguard the very concept of regular migration as a whole”, she added.

A future administration could attempt to create a type of climate visa to the US, but it is more likely to emphasize reducing harm around the world that displaces people initially, according to Yael Schacher, director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International.

“If the tide was to turn, it might be more for adaptation funding to help people stay where they are, rather than a new visa,” Schacher said.

“We have our own displacement in the US, too - we aren’t immune from this. Right now the sympathy for immigrants, even people displaced by the worst persecution, is nil. It’s hard to see any sort of expansive opening - up, even if that’s what people need.”