It has come to light that the Trump administration is thinking about issuing sweeping travel limitations for the citizens of dozens of nations as part of a new ban. The memo contains a total of 41 nations divided into three separate classes. The first group of 10 nations, including Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Syria and North Korea, among others, would be imposed for a full visa suspension.
In the second group, five nations, Laos, Eritrea, Haiti, Myanmar and South Sudan would meet partial restrictions that would affect tourist and student visas as well as other immigrant visas, with some peculiarities.
In the third group, around 26 nations that include Pakistan, Belarus and Turkmenistan, among others, would be regarded for a partial suspension of U.S. visa allotment if their administrations “do not make efforts to address shortages within 60 days”, the memo stated.
According to sources, who talked on the condition of anonymity to debate the sensitive internal deliberations, warned that the list had been designed by the State Department several weeks ago, and that modifications were probably made by the time it arrived at the White House.
Officeholders at embassies and in regional bureaus at the State Department, and security experts at other branches and intelligence agencies, have been examining the draft. They are providing statements about whether reports of deficiencies in particular nations are accurate or whether there are guideline reasons like not risking disturbance to collaboration on some other emphasis to review including some.
The move pays homage to President Donald Trump’s first travel ban on travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries, a policy that went through many iterations before it was supported by the Supreme Court in 2018.
The Times and other news outlets noted this month that Afghanistan, which was not part of Mr. Trump’s first-term travel prohibitions but plunged to the Taliban when the U.S. shrank its forces in 2021, was likely to be part of the second-term prohibition. But the other nations under consideration had been clouded.
Trump gave an executive order on January 20 demanding intensified safety vetting of any foreigners desiring admission to the U.S. to witness national security threats. That order ushered several cabinet constituents to offer by March 21 a list of nations from which travel should be partly or fully discontinued because their “vetting and screening information is so deficient.” Trump’s order is part of an immigration clampdown that he launched at the beginning of his second term.
He outlined his program in an October 2023 speech, promising to ban people from the Gaza Strip, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and “anywhere else that threatens our security.”
