President Donald Trump is banning visitors from 12 countries from entering the United States and partially restricted access to travellers from seven other nations.
The move, first reported by CBS on Wednesday evening, is the latest in Trump’s efforts to secure America’s borders.
Nationals of Afghanistan, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen will be barred from entering the United States under the new proclamation.
Further to that ban, citizens of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be partially restricted from traveling.
Trump also issued a warning that Egypt could soon join the no-fly list in the wake of the Colorado terror attack in which an Egyptian national who overstayed his visa allegedly set fire to pro-Israel demonstrators.
‘We don’t want ’em,’ Trump said bluntly in a video released shortly after the ban was announced.
‘Very simply, we cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen.’
Mohamed Soliman, the Egyptian national suspect charged with firebombing pro-Israel demonstrators, was residing in the US illegally with his wife and five children.
The president has directed several of his top national security chiefs to investigate whether Egypt should also be added to the list of restricted nations.
Also Read: US embassy unveils new immigration visa process
White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson confirmed the report on Wednesday evening, writing on X: ‘President Trump is fulfilling his promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors that want to come to our country and cause us harm.
‘These commonsense restrictions are country-specific and include places that lack proper vetting, exhibit high visa overstay rates, or fail to share identity and threat information.
‘President Trump will ALWAYS act in the best of interest of the American people and their safety.
During his first term in office, Trump announced a ban on travellers from seven majority-Muslim nations, a policy that went through several iterations before it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
Former President Joe Biden, a Democrat who succeeded Trump, repealed the ban in 2021, calling it ‘a stain on our national conscience.’
‘In light of recent events, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence, shall provide me an update to the review of the practices and procedures of Egypt,’ he wrote in a Wednesday proclamation.
Trump said he hopes their efforts will ‘confirm the adequacy of its current screening and vetting capabilities.’
He said the tragedy in Boulder ‘underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted.
‘We’ve seen one terror attack after another from foreign visa overstayers… thanks to Biden’s open door policies today there are millions and millions of these illegals who should not be in our country.’
Several of the nations facing bans have been targeted because their screening and vetting capabilities are not up to the president’s standards, putting Egypt on high alert.
Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Sudan and Yemen were all placed on the banned list in part due to limited screening and vetting measures, Trump noted.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson wrote on X: ‘President Trump is fulfilling his promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors that want to come to our country and cause us harm.
‘These commonsense restrictions are country-specific and include places that lack proper vetting, exhibit high visa overstay rates, or fail to share identity and threat information.
‘President Trump will ALWAYS act in the best of interest of the American people and their safety.’
Reported by MailOnline
