A leaked draft list shows three tiers of nations whose citizens may face restrictions or complete bans on entering the United States after previously barring entry from Muslim countries
Donald Trump is set to slap new bans on people from 43 countries from travelling to the US – more than the restrictions set during his first term.
The Orange Manbaby – who sparked outrage and chaos at airports with his previous travel ban – ordered his staff to draw up a list of countries that will face full visa suspensions and partial suspensions.
A leaked memo reveals a draft list of recommendations by officials which will see a colour-coded scheme come into place, the Mirror reports.
Swathes of nations will be divided into three separate groups with 11 countries on the ‘Red’ list, meaning all travel will be banned, sources told the New York Times.
These would include: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen, according to officials. An orange category would mean visas would be heavily restricted and a yellow listed country would mean they would have 60 days to address concerns.
The draft proposal also included an ‘Orange’ list of 10 countries for which travel would be restricted but not cut off.
In those cases, affluent business travellers might be allowed to enter, but not people traveling on immigrant or tourist visas.
Travellers would need to take part in mandatory in-person interviews in order to obtain a visa.
The countries affected by that would be: Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Turkmenistan.
The third tier of restrictions, coded the ‘Yellow’ list, would give 22 countries 60 days to address deficiencies or they will remain on the list.
This list includes: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, Sao Tome and Principe, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe.
The travel ban would be an expansion of the President’s “Muslim ban” from his first term where he introduced a number of executive orders aimed to bar entry to the country from countries that predominantly had majority Muslim populations.
After taking office on January 20, Trump signed an executive order that required the State Department to identify countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”
He told the department it had 60 days to complete a report for him, which means it is due next week.
The State Department previously said it was following Trump’s order and that it was “committed to protecting our nation and its citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process.”