The US President, Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump is known for his angst towards immigrants. Since 2017, he has announced a series of executive orders restricting travel to the USA for citizens of certain countries. This has come to be known as the Trump travel ban or Muslim ban since the countries affected are predominantly Muslim. Currently, there are a total of 13 countries on the list. These are:
All of the above countries were not listed together. The Trump travel ban list evolved over a period of 3 years with the last inclusion being made as recently as January 2020.
Through the Executive Order 13769 in January and Executive Order 13780 in March, citizens of Iran, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen were banned from entering the USA.
Refugees without relevant travel documents and valid visas were also included in the ban. This ban was effective for only 90 days. after which it was replaced by the Presidential Proclamation 9645.
The Presidential Proclamation 9645 restricted entry into the USA for certain groups of citizens from 8 countries. Sudan was excluded from the original list while North Korea, Chad and Venezuela were added on.
Travel restrictions of citizens of Chad were removed.
In January 2020, the Trump administration issued the Presidential Proclamation 9983 and expanded the country’s restricted travel list to add 7 more countries.
It will now include 6 more countries. This includes Nigeria, Tanzania, Sudan, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan and Myanmar.
The new restrictions are said to be the result of these 6 countries failing to meet the US information-sharing and security standards. Problems cited range from failure to exchange information on suspected criminals and terrorists to subpar passport security technology.
For example, the official reason for putting Myanmar on the lists is the country’s inability to track lost and stolen passports effectively. By correcting the issue in question, all of these countries can free themselves from the restriction.
Citizens from these 4 countries will not be able to get visas that make them eligible to apply for permanent residency. Non-immigrant visas will still be issued to these 4 countries.
This includes visas for tourism, education, medical purposes, short-term business and journalism. The visas they are no longer eligible for include sponsored employment visas and spouse visas.
Citizens of Sudan and Tanzania will be excluded from the diversity lottery. Nigerians are already excluded from the diversity lottery since more than 50,000 Nigerians have already immigrated to the USA in the past 5 years.
Nigeria is considered Africa’s biggest economy and most populous country. Till now the country has shared a strong tie with the USA. Nigerian immigrants in the USA have been considered amongst the most educated and successful of all immigrant groups.
Given its historical relationship, it is balking at being included in this list. However, some Nigerians are blaming their own President for lowering’s the country’s ranking in the world.
Immigrants from these countries who have helped the USA in the past are exempt from the travel restrictions. Other exclusions include:
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