22nd January, 2020
The U.S. is moving to add more countries to its travel ban list, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday, but gave no other details, saying the changes would be announced soon.
The Trump administration is planning to add seven countries – Belarus, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania – to the list, U.S. media reported on Tuesday.
Trump on Tuesday confirmed he plans to expand his travel ban that bars citizens of certain countries from entering the U.S.
He told The Wall Street Journal in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he is looking to add more countries, though he would not say which ones.
The president’s comments confirm an Associated Press report from earlier this month.
Any additions or alterations to the travel ban would draw immediate legal challenges.
Trump’s openness to expand one of his most controversial policies at the outset of an election year signals that he will seek to rev up his base of supporters and double down on the isolationist ideas that he rode to the White House in 2016.
The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling in 2018 upheld a version of the ban that blocked nationals from five Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.
The ban applies to people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.
The ban upheld by the high court was a watered down version of the original White House proposal, which barred people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan from coming to the U.S. for 90 days and banned all refugees for 120 days.
The proposal drew nationwide protests at airports and other public places from critics who decried it as Islamophobic, Reuters reports.