President Donald Trump appears to have expanded the scope of the travel ban from his first term to include 43 countries, according to a report.
Although Trump failed to reintroduce the “travel ban” on “day one” of his second term, as he promised, he did issue an executive order on January 20 directing cabinet members to draft a list of countries that should face full or partial travel restrictions because their “vetting and screening information is so deficient” within 60 days. Now, with that deadline approaching, a draft list of proposed countries banned from traveling to the U.S. is circulating, the New York Times reported.
It was developed by the State Department weeks ago, officials familiar with the matter told the outlet, who cautioned it will likely undergo changes by the time the White House gets ahold of it.
The Independent has reached out to the White House and the State Department for comment.
The draft list was separated into three sections — red, orange, and yellow — to denote the level of restriction, according to the outlet.
The “red” list includes 11 countries whose citizens would be entirely forbidden from entering the United States: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.
Ten countries whose citizens will be limited from entering but not entirely banned, meaning they are required to have specific visas, were on the “orange” list. People of Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Turkmenistan will have to sit for in-person interviews to obtain a visa, the outlet reported.
The “yellow” list contains 22 countries, mostly African nations, that the Trump administration is giving 60 days to address its concerns over alleged “deficiencies.” If these nations don’t comply, they risk being placed on the red or orange lists, the Times reported.
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, São Tomé and Príncipe, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe.
Security specialists and embassy officials at State Department regional bureaus are reviewing the proposal and providing comments as to the accuracy of the so-called deficiencies or whether there are “policy reasons” to avoid certain categorizations, the outlet reported.
In his January 20 executive order, Trump said the travel ban would “protect its citizens from aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes.”
On former President Joe Biden’s first day in office in 2021, he issued a proclamation to terminate Trump’s travel bans. He said Trump’s bans were “a stain on our national conscience and [were] inconsistent with our long history of welcoming people of all faiths and no faith at all.”