by The United States Government under President Donald Trump is considering imposing a travel ban on Nigeria and a host of other countries, mostly from Africa. The Trump administration is considering restricting entry to citizens of an additional 36 countries, in what would be a significant expansion of the travel ban announced early this month, according to a State Department memo.
According to a report by the Washington Post, an internal memo signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday outlines a proposal that could impose visa restrictions or entry bans on up to 36 additional nations.
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The affected countries are expected to comply with newly established requirements from the U.S State Department within a 60-day timeframe or face potential travel restrictions.
“The new list of countries 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, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
“The memo identified varied benchmarks that, in the administration’s estimation, these countries were failing to meet. Some countries had “no competent or cooperative central government authority to produce reliable identity documents or other civil documents,” or they suffered from widespread government fraud.”
Others are Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Syria, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
The memo, which was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and 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. It set a deadline of 8 a.m. Wednesday for them to provide an initial action plan for meeting the requirements.
The list represents a significant expansion of a presidential proclamation issued June 4, when the United States fully restricted the entry of individuals from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The United States also had partially restricted the entry of travelers from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela under that order.
Democrats and other critics of the Trump administration have described its efforts to issue blanket travel bans on selected nations as xenophobic and bigoted, pointing to President Donald Trump’s efforts to block travel from Muslim-majority nations in his first term and the high number of African and Caribbean nations targeted during this term.
