According to a State Department memo acquired by The Washington Post, the United States is considering barring admission to citizens of an additional 36 nations, significantly expanding the travel ban imposed by the Trump administration earlier this month.
The new list of countries that may face visa bans or other restrictions includes 25 African nations, including important US partners such as Egypt and Djibouti, as well as Caribbean, Central Asian, and Pacific Island states.
A State Department representative stated that the government would not comment on internal discussions or conversations. The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Such a measure would be yet another step in the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown on immigration.
The memo, signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and distributed Saturday to U.S. diplomats working with the countries, stated that the governments of the named nations had 60 days to achieve new standards and requirements imposed by the State Department. It set a deadline of 8 a.m. Wednesday for them to submit an initial action plan to meet the requirements.
The memo highlighted various benchmarks that the administration believed these countries were failing to satisfy. Some countries had “no competent or cooperative central government authority to produce reliable identity documents or other civil documents”, or they had “widespread government fraud”. Others have a substantial number of citizens overstaying their visas in the United States, according to the memo.
Other reasons included the availability of citizenship through monetary investment without the need for residency, as well as charges of “antisemitic and anti-American activity in the United States” by citizens of other countries. According to the document, if a country is ready to receive third-country nationals who have been removed from the United States or enter into a “safe third country” pact, additional problems can be mitigated.
It was unclear when the proposed travel limitations would be implemented if the conditions were not met.
The countries facing scrutiny in the memo are Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
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, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The United States also had partially restricted the entry of travellers 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.
