Donald Trump, president of the United States of America, has imposed an immigration visa ban on Nigeria.
According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), other countries also affected by the visa restriction which will take effect from February 21, are Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan.
The journal quoted the acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, to have said the new immigration restrictions were designed to “address security concerns in the way the banned countries track their own citizens, share information with the U.S. and cooperate on immigration matters”.
It said citizens from the affected countries would not be allowed to apply for visas to immigrate to the US under the policy the Trump administration said was designed to “tighten security for countries that don’t comply with the US minimum security standards or cooperate to prevent illegal immigration”.
The journal, however, said the new restriction would apply only to new visa applications as immigrants who were issued valid visas before that date will still be able to move to the US.
According to the online medium, two other countries, Sudan and Tanzania, would be barred from participating in the diversity visa lottery, which randomly awards green cards to 50,000 immigrants from underrepresented countries annually. Many of the recipients are from African countries.
It said the six countries would join a list of seven nations, most of them Muslim-majority, that faced significant travel restrictions under the original travel ban issued in 2017 by the Trump administration.
The journal also quoted Wolf to have said the new restrictions were meant to encourage countries to cooperate more fully with the US.