Nigeria might be included in a controversial list of seven countries that would face US travel restrictions when President Donald Trump makes public a final list on or before Monday.
The new restrictions, coming three years after Trump’s initial travel ban that zeroed on majority-Muslim countries, would apply to travellers and immigrants from Belarus, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania, Trump administration officials tipped US-based WSJ.
The implication might not be a total ban on all travellers or immigrants from affected countries, but could have restrictions placed on specific types of visas, such as business or visitor visas, administration officials said. Students and those who have established “significant contacts” in the Us are also exempted from the restriction.
A non-profit association of US newspapers and broadcasters, Associated Press (AP) confirmed the existence of the new list that “has been circulating the White House. But the countries that would be affected if it moves forward are blacked out,” it said.
The news comes amid Trump’s bid for a second term in the upcoming presidential elections. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” election campaign in his outgoing tenure involved a strong stance against illegal migration.
“The travel ban has been profoundly successful in protecting our country and raising the security baseline around the world,” said Hogan Gidley, White House spokesman. “While there are no new announcements at this time, common sense and national security both dictate that if a country wants to fully participate in U.S. immigration programs they should also comply with all security and counter-terrorism measures — because we do not want to import terrorism or any other national security threat into the United States”
On 27, January 2017 Trump signed the initial executive to block citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries from accessing US Visa-although the order was challenged in court. Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, as well as Venezuela and North Korea are among countries on the current blacklist.
The new list said to include Nigeria is tentative as Trump is mulling adding more countries to the list, according to people familiar with the matter.