The Donald Trump administration is reportedly considering sweeping travel restrictions for citizens of 43 countries as part of a new ban, continuing an immigration crackdown that the US President initiated at the start of his second term in January.
The New York Times reported that an internal memo divides these countries into three separate categories.
The first group (called ‘red list’) includes 11 countries: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. Their citizens are proposed to be ‘flatly barred’ from travelling to the United States.
The second group (‘orange list’) comprises 10 nations, for which travel would be restricted but not cut off. In their case, affluent business travellers could be allowed to enter the US, but not those on immigrant or tourist visas. This group includes Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Turkmenistan.
The third category (yellow list), is the largest of the three with 22 countries, and would have 60 days to clear up perceived deficiencies, with the threat of being moved onto one of the other groups if they did not comply.
It includes Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Congo, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe.
A US official who spoke on the condition of anonymity cautioned there could be changes on the list, and it was yet to be approved by the Trump administration, including Marco Rubio, the secretary of state.