Trump Mulls Restricting Nigerians into US with Planned Travel Ban

By Adedapo Adesanya

Nigeria is reportedly among countries the United States under the President Donald Trump administration is planning to restrict her citizens into its territory if an executive order expanding visa restrictions to seven countries is finally signed.

The other countries include Belarus, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Sudan and Tanzania.

According to reports, the Trump administration might not place full visa bans on these countries as the restriction may be limited to certain types of visas like the business or visitor visa popularly referred to as B1/B2 visa type. It was also stated that Mr Trump is expected to announce the expanded travel restrictions next Monday, which would also mark the third-year anniversary of the first travel ban.

This means that for a country like Nigeria, which is a partner with the US especially on anti-terrorism matter, will be affected, as data showed that over 15 percent of Nigerians overstayed their welcome in the US.

It was also reported by several news sources that the policy was to prevent potential acts of terrorism because countries on the list do not adequately screen travellers as a senior Trump administration official said that countries that failed to comply with security requirements, including biometrics, information-sharing and counter-terrorism measures, faced the risk of limitations on US immigration.

“The travel ban has been profoundly successful in protecting our country and raising the security baseline around the world. While there are no new announcements at this time, common sense and national security both dictate that if a country wants to fully participate in US immigration programs, they should also comply with all security and counter-terrorism measures — because we do not want to import terrorism or any other national security threat into the United States,” White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

On January 27, 2017, one week after taking office, Mr Trump first introduced an executive order prohibiting entry into the US of foreign nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries, although court challenges forced the administration to modify the ban multiple times.

The current version of the executive order, also referred to as travel ban 3.0, restricts travellers from seven countries including five Muslim-majority nations — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen — in addition to North Korea and Venezuela. Chad was also under the ban but was removed in April 2018.