Trump administration unveils expanded travel ban

The Trump administration is expanding the reach of its controversial travel ban to six additional countries.

The United States will stop issuing visas that offer a path to residency to nationals from Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, Myanmar and Tanzania, said Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of homeland security, in a conference call on Friday.

The government will also stop issuing “diversity visas” to people from Tanzania and Sudan, Wolf said.

In the past Trump has argued that immigrants should only be allowed into the United States on merit and not through any form of lottery system.

Wolf, according to Reuters, offered multiple reasons for issuing the bans to the new set of countries. He said they did not meet the standard for information on security by the United States.

“These countries, for the most part, want to be helpful,” Wolf said, “but for a variety of different reasons simply failed to meet those minimum requirements that we laid out.”

The move is likely to restart the heated debate over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Immediately after the ban was announced a number of immigration related organizations denounced the move.

The Washington state governor, Jay Inslee, said the expansion “betrays the values that bind us as Americans”.

Other critics added their protests.

“The Trump administration’s efforts to expand the ban are offensive and actually harmful to our national security,” Amnesty International USA’s executive director, Margaret Huang, said in a statement.

“Our research has demonstrated how every version of this ban has shown itself to be deadly, dangerous and disastrous. This policy is rooted in hate, white supremacy and racism,” she added.

The expanded ban also comes amid increasing global alarm of the rapidly spreading coronavirus. On Friday three airlines: Delta, United, and American, suspended US flights to China as the virus spread through the country and health officials worked to contain it there.

The Trump administration on Friday afternoon also temporarily suspended allowing foreign nationals who have traveled to China from entering the country. That suspension goes into effect 2 February. It does not include the immediate families of American citizens or people who are permanent residents from coming into the United States.

Travel bans have been an ongoing flashpoint of the Trump administration. The first version of the travel ban blocked almost all immigrants and travelers to the United States from seven countries. Muslims made up the majority of the population in those countries. Court challenges to the ban followed and it was eventually upheld by the supreme court.