Trump govt considers imposing travel ban on 43 nations, Pakistan is one of them: Report

US President Donald Trump’s administration is reportedly considering targeting the citizens of as many as 43 countries as part of a new travel ban to the United States. With this, the Trump government plans to broaden the restrictions imposed during his first time. According to The New York Times, US diplomatic and security officials laid out a draft list recommending the list of countries whose nationals will be under the radar.

This list is divided into three categories. They are as follows:

• Red - All travel banned
• Orange - Visas sharply restricted
• Yellow - 60 days to address concerns

The red category has 11 countries whose citizens would be barred from entering the United States. These nations are; Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. The official, who asked to remain anonymous told the New York Times that the list was developed by the US State Department several weeks ago.

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The officials at embassies and regional bureaus at the State Department, security specialists at other departments and intelligence agencies are currently reviewing the draft. Hence, the list of countries and the categories they belong to might change in the future.

Pakistan is part of the orange list

The draft proposal also included an orange list mentioning 10 countries whose nationals would be restricted but not cut from travelling to the United States. As per the New York Times report, in these cases, only affluent business travellers might be allowed to enter, but not people travelling on immigrant or tourist visas.

Citizens belonging to this category would be subjected to mandatory in-person interviews to receive a visa. The nations that belong to the orange category are; Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Turkmenistan.

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Interestingly, Pakistan was also named the second most terrorist-affected country in the world. The first, Burkina Faso, belongs to the yellow category in the list presented by the Trump administration. On the first day of his presidency, Trump issued an executive order asking the State Department to identify countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”

He gave the department a 60-day deadline to finish the report. Hence, the list is due next week. However, it is unclear whether people with existing visas would be exempted from the ban or if their visas would be cancelled. It is also not clear whether the administration intends to exempt existing green card holders, who are approved for lawful permanent residency in the United States.

Some surprising names

While the list comprises names of nations that are already suffering from US sanctions, there were some countries whose mention came as a surprise. Bhutan, for example, was mentioned in the red category. The small Buddhist and Hindu country is sandwiched between China and India, neither of which were on any of the draft lists.

Russia is also on the red category, which is surprising since the Trump administration is trying to rebuild its ties with the Kremlin. The proposal also includes a draft “yellow” list of 22 countries that would be given 60 days to clear up perceived deficiencies.

The category comprises 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.

During Trump’s first stint in office, the courts blocked the government from enforcing the first two versions of his travel ban. Soon after coming to power in 2021, former US President Joe Biden issued a proclamation revoking Trump’s travel bans, calling them “a stain on our national conscience” and “inconsistent with our long history of welcoming people of all faiths and no faith at all.”

In the January order, Trump said that his government would revive the bans to protect American 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.”