WASHINGTON: A new travel ban by President Donald Trump could bar people from Afghanistan and Pakistan from entering the U.S. as soon as next week based on a government review of countries’ security and vetting risks, three sources familiar with the matter said.
The three sources, who requested anonymity, said other countries could also be on the list but did not know which ones.
The move harkens back to the Republican president’s first term ban on travelers from seven majority-Muslim nations, a policy that went through several iterations before it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
Former President Joe Biden, a Democrat who succeeded Trump, repealed the ban in 2021, calling it “a stain on our national conscience.”
The new ban could affect tens of thousands of Afghans who have been cleared for resettlement in the U.S. as refugees or on Special Immigrant Visas because they are at risk of Taliban retribution for working for the U.S. during a 20-year war in their home country.
Trump issued an executive order on January 20 requiring intensified security vetting of any foreigners seeking admission to the U.S. to detect national security threats.
That order directed several cabinet members to submit by March 12 a list of countries from which travel should be partly or fully suspended because their “vetting and screening information is so deficient.”
Afghanistan will be included in the recommended list of countries for a complete travel ban, said the three sources and one other who also asked not to be identified.
The three sources said Pakistan also would be recommended for inclusion.
The departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence, whose leaders are overseeing the initiative, did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
One source pointed out that Afghans cleared for resettlement in the U.S. as refugees or on the special visas first undergo intense screening that makes them “more highly vetted than any population” in the world.
The State Department office that oversees their resettlement is seeking an exemption for Special Immigrant Visa holders from the travel ban “but it’s not assumed likely to be granted,” the source said.
That office, the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts, has been told to develop a plan by April for its closure, Reuters reported last month.
The Taliban, who seized Kabul as the last U.S. troops pulled out in August 2021 after two decades of war, are confronting an insurgency by Islamic State’s regional branch. Pakistan also is grappling with violent Islamist militants.–Reuters
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