President Donald Trump took action Tuesday to impose full travel restrictions and entry limitations on five more nations, including Burkina Faso, Niger, and South Sudan–as the White House tells Breitbart News the president “is working to keep dangerous aliens out of our country.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson provided an exclusive statement to Breitbart News on the president’s latest action.
“President Trump’s top priority will always be the safety and security of the American people. This is just another way that the President is working to keep dangerous aliens out of our country who seek to exploit or harm American citizens,” she said.
“Countries with rampant corruption, lack of government control, or who are undermined by radical terrorist groups engaging in heinous crimes are unable to provide assurances that the foreign nationals from their countries will not bring these criminal enterprises to the United States. The Trump Administration will always choose America First,” Jackson added.
The president added nationals from the five countries, which also include Mali and Syria, and those who carry “Palestinian-Authority-issued travel documents” via a proclamation to the list of nations whose nationals are fully restricted from traveling to the United States. Moreover, Trump has upgraded Laos and Sierra Leone, which were under partial restrictions until Tuesday, to full travel restrictions as well. He also placed partial restrictions on Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia, and Zimbabwe on Tuesday.
While Syria is on the list, the proclamation states, “Syria is emerging from a protracted period of civil unrest and internal strife.”
“While the country is working to address its security challenges in close coordination with the United States, Syria still lacks an adequate central authority for issuing passports or civil documents and does not have appropriate screening and vetting measures,” it adds.
Trump’s action continues the full restrictions he placed on Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen months ago and keeps in place partial limitations on four of the seven countries hit initially with partial restrictions, including Burundi, Cuba, Togo, and Venezuela.
“Because Turkmenistan has engaged productively with the United States and demonstrated significant progress since the previous Proclamation, this new Proclamation lifts the ban on its nonimmigrant visas, while maintaining the suspension of entry for Turkmen nationals as immigrants,” the White House noted in a fact sheet.
The proclamation cites significant B-1/B-2 visa overstay rates for nationals of various countries, and cites terrorist activity in several nations, including Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Below are the overstay rates for nationals from some countries facing full travel restrictions beginning Tuesday:
- Burkina Faso: 9.16 percent
- Laos: 28.34 percent
- Niger: 13.41 percent
- Sierra Leone: 16.48 percent
- South Sudan: 6.99 percent
- Syria: 7.09 percent
The following are the B1-B2 visa overstay rates of some countries that now face partial restrictions:
- Angola: 14.43 percent
- Benin: 12.34 percent
- Cote d ‘Ivoire: 8.47 percent
- Gabon: 13.72 percent
- The Gambia: 12.7 percent
- Malawi: 22.45 percent
- Mauritania: 9.49 percent
- Nigeria: 5.56 percent
- Senegal: 4.3 percent
- Tanzania: 8.3 percent
- Tonga: 6.45 percent
- Zambia: 10.73 percent
- Zimbabwe: 7.89 percent
Trump’s initial restrictions in June came through Proclamation 10949.
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