A rumor that circulated online in early July 2025 claimed leaked U.S. government memos confirmed U.S. President Donald Trump's administration was testing "internal travel restrictions" inside U.S. borders — a different initiative than his travel ban involving other countries. Snopes readers searched our site for information about this matter.
One reader submitted a Facebook reel — Meta's name for short videos on Facebook and Instagram — showing footage of Trump and his motorcade in the Netherlands in June 2025, as well as general airport footage, local news clips and stock videos.
The reel displayed the headline, "Breaking news: Next phase? Travel restrictions within the U.S. now under discussion." The reel received over 121,000 views. Other users, including on TikTok, also shared the same video or a new one with the same narration.
A voice-over in the Facebook reel said:
Breaking news coming in within the past hour. What started at the borders may now be happening inside the country. According to new leaked memos from DHS and TSA, internal travel restrictions are already being tested, starting with high risk zones in New York, California and Texas. Unofficial checkpoints, random ID inspections and in some cases, denial of boarding on domestic flights. The documents cite national security protocols, but immigration lawyers and human rights advocates say what's happening is unprecedented.
Some U.S. citizens are being questioned simply for having dual nationality. In one case, a family traveling from Miami to Chicago was stopped, interrogated and told their travel was being reviewed. And it's not just airports. Bus terminals, train stations, even interstate highways are now being watched for what officials call patterns of concern. Social media is exploding with videos of people being stopped with no clear explanation, but the White House continues to deny that internal restrictions are in place. Is this about national security, or is the government quietly rolling out a new phase of control?
One civil rights attorney put it bluntly. "If you're a naturalized citizen or even a second-generation American, your freedom of movement is now conditional. And remember, the border is still closed. Now the question is, are we all already inside the cage? This is no longer a warning. It's already happening."
However, the story was false. Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no news media outlets reporting developments about "internal travel restrictions" imposed within U.S. borders. Similar searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo also turned up empty for recent news about the video's mention of supposed "new leaked memos" from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
Had someone leaked any such memos, outlets worldwide would have widely covered the matter. Also, the narrator failed to announce any identifying details about many of the claims, including the name of the "civil rights attorney" quoted in the video.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson told Snopes by email, "This is obviously fake news."
The Facebook reel featured narration and possibly also scripting generated with artificial-intelligence (AI) tools. The voice did not match any publicly available selections on the popular ElevenLabs generative-AI website but did sound like past AI-generated voices Snopes examined. Also, a scan with the AI-detection website Sightengine found an extremely high likelihood the profile photo (archived) of the account that posted the reel was also a product of AI software. For example, the many cracks on the female subject's sunglasses may reflect an error made by the AI tool that created the picture.
For further reading, a previous investigation examined a rumor claiming Trump's felony convictions automatically banned him from entering 37 countries.