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The United States of America has imposed an immigration visa ban on Nigeria.
According to The Wall Street Journal, “citizens from Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan won’t be allowed to apply for visas to immigrate to U.S”
Sudan and Tanzania are also on the list.
It quoted Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, as saying 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”.
The latest travel ban is an addition of six countries to the list of countries already banned by the Trump administration.
Administration officials however say that the measure would not necessarily block all citizens of those nations from entering the United States, impacting only “limited categories” of travelers with a range of restrictions.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the State Department has put increasing pressure on countries it deems “recalcitrant” for not adopting electronic passports with biometric data and agreeing to certain information-sharing with the United States.
The new restrictions won’t take effect until Feb. 22, officials said.
Since the extended travel ban will be applied on the immigrant visa category, this will restrict immigration to the US for the countries included in the visa restriction. Also the US have remove the countries from participating in the visa lottery which grant US permanent residency to the chosen winners.