36 countries want to be added to the list of countries whose citizens are banned from entering the US

Internal memo that I have read The Washington Post, sets a 60-day deadline for these countries to comply with certain requirements or their citizens could be banned from entering the United States in whole or in part.

Photo: Robert Sholl | Dreamstime.com

The United States is considering restricting entry to citizens from 36 more countries, a significant expansion of the travel ban announced by the Trump administration in June, according to a State Department memo.

Among the countries that could face visa restrictions or other measures are 25 African nations, including important U.S. partners such as Egypt and Djibouti, as well as countries in the Caribbean, Central Asia and several Pacific island nations.

On the subject: Trump has restricted or banned entry into the US for residents of 19 countries

The move would be the latest escalation in the Trump administration's policy of tightening immigration controls.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a memo to U.S. diplomats working with these countries on June 14. It says the governments of these countries have 60 days to comply with the new criteria and requirements set by the State Department. The deadline for submitting a preliminary action plan to meet these requirements is June 18.

The memo lists various criteria that the administration believes these countries do not meet. Some have “no or limited cooperation from a competent central government agency capable of issuing reliable identification documents” or suffer from “widespread government fraud.” Others are said to have large numbers of their citizens overstaying their visas in the United States.

Other reasons cited included citizenship-by-investment programs with no residency requirement, and allegations of “anti-Semitic and anti-American activity on U.S. soil” by individuals from those countries. The memo also noted that if a country was willing to accept third-country nationals expelled from the U.S. or enter into a “safe third country” agreement, that could offset other concerns.

It is unclear exactly when the proposed travel restrictions would come into effect if the demands are not met.

The note lists the following countries: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The list significantly expands on the presidential proclamation of June 4, when the United States completely banned entry to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Under that document, partial entry restrictions were extended to citizens of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Democrats and other critics of the Trump administration have called the administration's sweeping travel bans on people from certain countries xenophobic and racist. They have decried the White House's efforts to block travel from Muslim-majority countries in his first term, as well as the large number of African and Caribbean countries on the list this time around.

Early in his first term, Trump sought to restrict entry from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, and Libya. The first version of the ban caused chaos and confusion at airports. Numerous lawsuits followed. Finally, the Supreme Court upheld the third version of the travel ban in June 2018.

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Although the travel ban was lifted under the Biden administration, Trump repeatedly promised to reinstate it during his second presidential campaign, saying the new ban would be “even bigger.”

On the day of the 47th president's inauguration, the White House issued an executive order instructing U.S. agencies, including the State Department, to seek out "countries around the world for which the security clearance and information process is so deficient as to justify partial or complete suspension of entry of their citizens into the United States."

A State Department spokesman declined to comment on internal discussions surrounding the memo.

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