THE United States President Donald Trump has imposed a new travel ban restricting immigration from Nigeria, and five other countries.
The travel ban policy will prevent citizens from Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar, and Kyrgyzstan from obtaining visas to immigrate to the U.S.
This policy, according to the US government, was designed to tighten security for countries that don’t comply with the U.S. minimum security standards or cooperate to prevent illegal immigration.
The Wall Street Journal reports that in line with the policy, two other countries, Sudan and Tanzania, will be barred from participating in the diversity visa lottery, which randomly awards green cards to 50,000 immigrants from underrepresented countries annually.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in a report by Aljazeera few days ago said the House will consider the “NO BAN Act” which would overturn the ban and prevent the president from establishing future restrictions unless the administration provides strong evidence to justify it in consultation with Congress.
“House Democrats continue to stand opposed to President Trump’s cruel, un-American travel ban in all of its iterations. In the coming weeks, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up and bring to the floor the NO BAN Act to prohibit religious discrimination in our immigration system and limit the president’s ability to impose such biased and bigoted restrictions,” Pelosi said in a statement.
According to the US officials, the new restrictions are set to take effect on Feb 21 and will apply only to new visa applications. Immigrants who were issued valid visas before that date will still be able to move to the U.S.
Nigeria and the five other countries listed will join a list of seven nations that faced significant travel restrictions under President Trump’s original travel ban which was issued earlier in 2017.
Abeeb Alawiye formerly works with The ICIR as a Reporter/Social Media officer. Now work as a Senior Journalist with BBC News Yoruba. You can shoot him an email via Abeeb.alawiye@bbc.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @habsonfloww