Trump expands travel ban, adding 5 more countries and imposing new limits on others

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion is ex­pand­ing its trav­el ban to in­clude five more coun­tries and im­pose new lim­its on oth­ers.

This move Tues­day is part of on­go­ing ef­forts to tight­en U.S. en­try stan­dards for trav­el and im­mi­gra­tion. The de­ci­sion fol­lows the ar­rest of an Afghan na­tion­al sus­pect in the shoot­ing of two Na­tion­al Guard troops over Thanks­giv­ing week­end.

In June, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump an­nounced that cit­i­zens of 12 coun­tries would be banned from vis­it­ing the Unit­ed States and those from sev­en oth­ers would face re­stric­tions. The de­ci­sion res­ur­rect­ed a hall­mark pol­i­cy of his first term.

At the time the ban in­clud­ed Afghanistan, Myan­mar, Chad, the Re­pub­lic of Con­go, Equa­to­r­i­al Guinea, Er­itrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, So­ma­lia, Su­dan and Yemen and height­ened re­stric­tions on vis­i­tors from Bu­run­di, Cu­ba, Laos, Sier­ra Leone, To­go, Turk­menistan and Venezuela.

On Tues­day, the Re­pub­li­can ad­min­is­tra­tion an­nounced it was ex­pand­ing the list of coun­tries whose cit­i­zens are banned from en­ter­ing the U.S. to Burk­i­na Fa­so, Mali, Niger, South Su­dan and Syr­ia. The ad­min­is­tra­tion al­so ful­ly re­strict­ed trav­el on peo­ple with Pales­tin­ian-Au­thor­i­ty-is­sued trav­el doc­u­ments.

An ad­di­tion­al 15 coun­tries are al­so be­ing added to the list of coun­tries fac­ing par­tial re­stric­tions: An­go­la, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Do­mini­ca, Gabon, Gam­bia, Malawi, Mau­ri­ta­nia, Nige­ria, Sene­gal, Tan­za­nia, Ton­ga, Zam­bia and Zim­bab­we.

The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion said in its an­nounce­ment of the ex­pand­ed trav­el ban that many of the coun­tries from which it was re­strict­ing trav­el had “wide­spread cor­rup­tion, fraud­u­lent or un­re­li­able civ­il doc­u­ments and crim­i­nal records” that made it dif­fi­cult to vet their cit­i­zens for trav­el to the U.S.

It al­so said some coun­tries had high rates of peo­ple over­stay­ing their visas, re­fused to take back their cit­i­zens who the U.S. wished to de­port or had a “gen­er­al lack of sta­bil­i­ty and gov­ern­ment con­trol”, which made vet­ting dif­fi­cult.

“The re­stric­tions and lim­i­ta­tions im­posed by the Procla­ma­tion are nec­es­sary to pre­vent the en­try of for­eign na­tion­als about whom the Unit­ed States lacks suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion to as­sess the risks they pose, gar­ner co­op­er­a­tion from for­eign gov­ern­ments, en­force our im­mi­gra­tion laws, and ad­vance oth­er im­por­tant for­eign pol­i­cy, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, and coun­tert­er­ror­ism ob­jec­tives,” reads the White House procla­ma­tion an­nounc­ing the changes.

The Afghan man ac­cused of shoot­ing the two Na­tion­al Guard troops near the White House has plead­ed not guilty to mur­der and as­sault charges. —WASH­ING­TON (AP)

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Sto­ry by RE­BEC­CA SAN­TANA | As­so­ci­at­ed Press