The United States President, Donald Trump, is set to add Nigeria and six others to a new list of countries on America\u2019s visa restriction, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
\nAccording to the report, Nigerians would not be barred from entering the country but would not be issued with certain types of visas.
\nThe Trump administration plans to roll out its expanded travel restrictions on Monday, marking the three-year anniversary of the initial travel ban Trump signed on his seventh day in office, sparking controversy at the beginning of his term.
\nUnlike the initial travel ban list of 2017, most of the new countries don\u2019t have majority-Muslim populations.
\nSeveral of them, however, have had relatively higher rates of their citizens overstaying visas in the US, according to DHS data.
\nThe report reads in part, \u201cThe Trump administration plans to add seven countries to a group of nations subject to travel restrictions, including Nigeria, Africa\u2019s most populous country, along with others in Africa and Asia, according to administration officials who have seen the list.
\n\u201cThe new restrictions would apply to travellers and immigrants from Belarus, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania. The countries wouldn\u2019t necessarily face blanket bans on travel to the US, but could have restrictions placed on specific types of visas, such as business or visitor visas, administration officials said.\u201d
\nNigeria could be on the list because it has a high rate of persons overstaying their visas.
\nIn the 2018 fiscal year, 24 per cent of Eritreans on business or visitor visas overstayed their permits, along with 15 per cent of Nigerians and 12 per cent of people from Sudan.
\nThose compared with a total overstay rate in the category of 1.9 per cent.
\nAccording to WSJ, some countries could be banned from participating in the diversity visa lottery program, which awards green cards to people in countries with low levels of immigration to the US.
\nTrump has called for an end to that programme, saying it lets undesirable people into the US, and he has proposed reorienting the existing visa system toward skilled workers instead.
\nNigeria had already been barred from participating from the lottery programme over six years ago.
\nThe officials said the list isn\u2019t final, and last Tuesday, the White House was still debating whether to include one or two of the countries.
\nThe Department of Homeland Security didn\u2019t respond to request for comment.
\nThe State Department declined to comment.
\nThe administration has said its policy restricting travel is necessary to prevent potential acts of terrorism, as countries on the list don\u2019t adequately vet their travellers to the US.
\nThe first order, which banned travel to the US by most residents of seven majority-Muslim countries, was struck down by a federal court and withdrawn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States President, Donald Trump, is set to add Nigeria and six others to a new list of countries on America\u2019s visa restriction, the Wall Street Journal has reported. According to the report, Nigerians would not be barred from entering the country but would not be issued with certain types of visas. The Trump […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":225591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,26],"tags":[688],"class_list":["post-225579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-front-pix","tag-front-pix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/225591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}