Washington — The Trump administration is expanding Its travel ban To include five other countries and impose new restrictions on other countries.
Tuesday’s move is part of ongoing efforts to tighten U.S. entry standards for travel and immigration. The decision follows the arrest of an Afghan national suspected of shooting two National Guard soldiers over the Thanksgiving weekend.
In June, President Donald Trump He announced that citizens of 12 countries would be banned from visiting the United States and citizens of seven other countries would face restrictions. The decision revived the signature politics 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 restrictions were also tightened on visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
On Tuesday, the Republican administration announced the expansion of the list of countries whose citizens are prohibited from entering the United States to Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, and Syria. The administration also imposed complete travel restrictions on people holding travel documents issued by the Palestinian Authority.
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 announcing the expanded travel ban that many of the countries from which it imposed travel restrictions had “widespread corruption and fraudulent or unreliable civil documents and criminal records” that made it difficult to vet their citizens for travel to the United States. She also said some countries had high rates of people overstaying their visas, refused to take back their citizens whom the United States wanted to deport or had a “general lack of stability and government control,” which made auditing difficult.
“The restrictions and restrictions imposed by the declaration are necessary to deny entry to 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,” the White House announcement announcing the changes said.
The Afghan man accused of shooting Two soldiers from the National Guard Near the White House pleaded not guilty to murder and assault charges.