United States President Donald Trump is considering adding Nigeria and some African countries to a list of countries hit with a visa ban.
The Washington Post, on Saturday, reported that an internal memo signed by Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said 36 countries might be affected by the travel ban if approved by Trump.
The Trump administration cited a lack of government transparency and a proper database to freely vet the backgrounds of travellers from these countries as the reason for the incoming ban, amid efforts by the government in Washington to reduce immigration to the United States.
The new list includes Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Others are Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Syria, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
The countries on the new list are also expected to submit to the State Department, on Wednesday, an initial plan of action to meet the new requirements.
United States authorities said some countries in the list had no competent or cooperative central government authority to produce reliable identity documents or other civil documents.
The countries, according to the Trump government, might also have suffered from “widespread government fraud,” and others had large numbers of citizens who overstayed their visas in the United States.
The memo sent Saturday to U.S. diplomats who work with the countries said the governments of listed nations were being given 60 days to meet new benchmarks and requirements established by the State Department.
The planned travel ban followed similar restrictions placed on nationals from 12 countries — Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen — by the United States earlier this month.
Like the previous proclamation, the majority of the countries under consideration for the next wave of travel restrictions, dubbed the third-world list, are African nations.
Out of 36 countries on the list, 25 are from Africa, including Nigeria and America’s two closest military allies on the continent, Egypt and Djibouti.
Credit: The Guardian
