WASHINGTON • The Trump administration said it will add six new countries to its travel ban, part of an election-year crackdown that could reignite debate over whether the policy discriminates against Muslims.
Restrictions on entering the US will now apply to certain travellers and migrants from Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, as well as Sudan, Tanzania, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar, according to a senior Department of Homeland Security official on Friday.
The updated policy would not completely ban all citizens of those countries from coming to the US, but instead would limit access to certain kinds of visas.
Unlike the initial list, most of the countries just added do not have Muslim-majority populations. Under the plan, immigration visas will be suspended for Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Eritrea and Nigeria.
Access to the diversity lottery programme will be limited for Sudan and Tanzania, and the new restrictions will go into place in 21 days. Travellers en route to the US will not be denied entry and those who already have visas or permanent residency will not be impacted by the new restrictions.
Refugees, students and temporary workers will still be able to travel to the US after the restrictions go into place, the official said.
The administration said the restrictions were implemented for a variety of reasons, including insufficient passport security and information sharing about terrorists and criminals.
The roll-out of expanded restrictions covering additional countries comes about three years after President Donald Trump signed the initial travel ban during his first week in office, setting off a legal and political firestorm.
Mr Trump and his aides have defended the travel restrictions as necessary to prevent terrorist attacks in the US by limiting the arrival of people from countries they say have poor vetting and record-keeping standards.
But congressional Democrats and immigrant-rights activists have said the policy is discriminatory against Muslims.
Mr Trump in December 2015, almost a year before his election, called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”. Critics argue that the travel ban is an outgrowth of that declaration.
Mr Trump’s initial 2017 executive order banned people travelling to the US from seven majority-Muslim countries.
Meanwhile, Kyrgyzstan hit out yesterday at the immigration restrictions, complaining that they were applied selectively and had damaged relations.
BLOOMBERG, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE