Reports suggest that dozens of countries could be affected
President Trump is reportedly set to introduce a new travel ban to prevent people from certain countries entering America.
The President previously ordered his cabinet to compose a list of countries deemed to have insufficient ‘vetting and ‘screening’ processes, which could be considered for a new ban. Now reports suggest that dozens of countries could be affected.
Some could be subjected to a full visa suspension, others could have partial suspensions affecting students and tourists, with other countries potentially set to face partial suspensions if governments do not make changes, the Mirror reports.
Officials, who spoke to the New York Times on the condition of anonymity said the list had been developed by the State Department several weeks ago and changes to it were likely by the time it reached the White House.
Officials at embassies and intelligence agencies across the globe have reviewed the draft.
After taking office on January 20, Mr Trump signed an executive order that required the State Department to identify countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”
He told the department it had 60 days to complete a report for him, which means it is due next week.
The State Department previously said it was following Mr Trump’s order and that it was “committed to protecting our nation and its citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process.”
The Mirror reports that the new ban would split affected countries into a red, orange and yellow categories.
There would be a so-called “red” list of 11 countries whose citizens would be banned from entering the country, to include Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen, according to officials.
An orange category would mean visas from those countries would be heavily restricted with countries including Belarus, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Turkmenistan affected.
Countries within the US’ ‘yellow list’ would mean they would have 60 days to address concerns from the USA, with the threat of being moved to one of the other lists should they fail to implement them. That list includes: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe.
It follows a travel ban in the President’s first term, when he introduced a number of executive orders aimed to bar entry to the country from countries that predominantly had majority Muslim populations.
At the time of the previous travel ban, President Trump denied it was a ‘Muslim ban’. He and his Press Secretary insisted that the executive order signed by the President was not aimed at a religion or nationality, but was a bid to reduce the threat of terrorism.
The policy underwent a series of legal challenges and was subject to two major revisions. When Joe Biden became President in 2021, he reversed most of the travel bans.
