US imposes immigration restrictions on 6 more countries

The Donald Trump-led US Govt. imposed immigration restrictions on six more countries on Friday.

Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan were banned from Immigrant Visas. Sudan and Tanzania were suspended from the Diversity Visa, which awards Green Cards to countries with low immigration to the US.

Non-immigrant Visas remain unaffected. Any Visas that have been previously issued would also not be affected.

President Trump is expected to sign a proclamation which puts the restrictions in effect from 22^nd February. Official estimates state that more than 12,400 Visa applicants would be affected by these restrictions.

An official from the Dept. of Homeland Security said that six countries were unable to meet the required security and information-sharing standards set by the Trump Govt. The restrictions have been imposed as these countries were unable to or were unwilling to adhere to the below criteria established by the DHS in 2017:

• Baseline identification management
• Information sharing
• Public safety criteria
• National security

The immigration restrictions have been considered as the latest measure by the Trump Govt to reduce immigration. As the Trump Govt. engages in re-election efforts, reducing immigration has been a top campaign promise.

The Trump Govt. had earlier imposed a travel ban on seven countries with a Muslim-majority.

However, the DHS official said that the new immigration restrictions would not apply to refugees.

The DHS reviewed 200 countries before recommending travel restrictions on the six new countries. There are already seven countries on the travel ban list of the US. They are:

• Libya
• Iran
• Syria
• Yemen
• North Korea
• Somalia
• Venezuela

Countries who have been banned from Immigrant Visas would still be able to apply for Visitor Visas to the US. According to the DHS, the US would like to focus on immigrants who would be harder to deport.

Since 8^th December 2017, the immigration restrictions have affected more than 79,769 applications. As per recent State Dept. data, 6,333 of them were issued exceptions, while 17,798 were issued waivers.

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