Trump has expanded an immigration ban to one of the post-Soviet countries: what you need to know

The US administration has announced an expansion of the list of countries whose citizens will be restricted from entering the United States. For the first time, the state of the former USSR, Kyrgyzstan, was included in this list. In addition to it, the list includes Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Eritrea and Myanmar. Writes about this with the BBC.

Фото: Depositphotos

According to American media reports, Washington was considering the possibility of restricting entry for Belarusian citizens, but then abandoned this step.

Contrary to the forecasts of the American media that announced the upcoming decree of US President Donald Trump a few weeks ago, the new list does not imply a complete ban on entry into the United States for citizens of six states. Residents of Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Eritrea and Nigeria, for example, are denied the right to apply for immigrant visas that give them the right to reside and work in the United States. Citizens of Sudan and Tanzania will be excluded from participating in the green card lottery.

At the same time, residents of all these countries will still be able to apply to the American embassies and consulates for tourist and business visas.

Priority bans

The first order to ban entry into the United States for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries was signed by trump January 27, 2017, just a week after the inauguration of the new President of the United States. The list includes Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia. Later, Venezuela and North Korea were included in this list.

Representatives of the administration then explained that the citizens of precisely these states pose a special threat to US national security, and they should be completely prohibited from entering the country.

The president's order, dubbed the "Muslim ban" in the American media, was blocked three times by federal judges in various states, but in the end the Supreme Court sided with the president. Iraq and Sudan were removed from the list, and the text of the order was amended to specify Washington's requirements for the countries included in the list.

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These include issuing biometric passports equipped with an electronic chip to citizens traveling abroad, as well as expanding the amount of information about terrorist and other threats that their governments share with US authorities.

In his public speeches in recent years, Donald Trump has repeatedly mentioned that tightening immigration policy is one of the priorities of his administration, and the lists of countries whose citizens will be restricted from entering the United States will be constantly expanded.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to Davos in January 2020, Donald Trump confirmed that he did not intend to abandon his campaign promises to limit immigration.

“We are adding several states to the list,” Trump said. - We must be safe. Our country must be safe. You see what's happening in the world. Our country must be safe."

"Myopic position"

The new list should have included two post-Soviet states at once - Kyrgyzstan and Belarus. Restrictions were also planned to be introduced against citizens of Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Eritrea and Myanmar.

The US State Department then officially refused to respond to a request from BBC reporters. Interlocutors of journalists in the American diplomatic department, who nevertheless agreed to comment on the appearance of the new list on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the initiative to expand the ban comes from the administration, but could not clearly determine why these states were included in this list.

The Nigerian government, for example, is a US partner in the global anti-terrorism program, and Nigerian military personnel are conducting joint operations with the US military.

A source in the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry said that Kyrgyz diplomats learned about the upcoming ban from an article in Politico.

Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Chingiz Aidarbekov believes the whole thing in the absence of citizens of the country biometric passports.

A source in the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry, in a conversation with reporters, expressed confidence that the decision was caused by the US domestic political agenda and was not connected with the US policy with regard to Kyrgyzstan.

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According to him, behind the ban is “the stupid, short-sighted, clumsy position of the current US administration.” The diplomat suggested that some part of the American establishment could remain dissatisfied with the closure of the US base in Kyrgyzstan in 2014, and the inclusion of this country in the new list is determined by the military and economic alliance of Bishkek with Moscow.

Security?

Introducing on Friday, January 31, the administration’s new initiative, Acting Head of the US Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolfe He explained, that the new list was the result of a “systematic review” that lasted almost a year.

In March 2018, the American administration sent a number of questions to the governments of 200 states regarding their cooperation with the United States in the fight against terrorism, the exchange of intelligence information and data on passports issued to their own citizens. The authorities of these countries were also required to independently assess the “level and extent” of the terrorist threat.

After that, an interagency group in the USA, which included representatives of the Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon, the State Department and the office of the director of the National Intelligence Service, conducted their own assessment of the situation in all these states.

“As a result, these are the six states that received the worst scores,” Wolf explained, answering questions from reporters in Washington. “Just like the seven countries already included in the original list, they took last place in the overall list.”

The official felt it necessary to clarify that “most” of these countries intend to maintain good relations with the United States and tried to help the Americans assess terrorist threats.

“For a variety of reasons, they were unable to meet the minimum requirements that we laid out,” Wolfe said. “Therefore, the only way to reduce possible risks was to introduce travel restrictions.”

He added that the administration intends to conduct such reviews every six months, and any of the countries will get a chance to be removed from the list if Washington considers that this state has taken the necessary measures to strengthen its own security and has begun to cooperate more with the United States.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• US Presidential Administration Donald Trump planned to add 7 more countries to the list of travel bans in the USA. Among them were two post-Soviet countries. Immigrants from several countries - Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Eritrea, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania - may face restrictions on certain types of visas, representatives of the Trump administration said.
• They may also be barred from participating in the green card lottery, which provides an opportunity to win the right to become a permanent legal resident of the United States to people from countries with low immigration to the United States as part of a program that Trump seeks to complete.

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