The United States, under President Donald Trump, is reportedly considering expanding its visa ban to include Nigeria and several other countries, many of them in Africa. An internal memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as reported by The Washington Post, suggests that 36 nations could face these new travel restrictions.
The primary reason given for this potential ban is a lack of government transparency and insufficient systems to properly check the backgrounds of travelers from these countries. This move is part of a broader effort by the U.S. government to reduce immigration.
The extensive list of countries under consideration includes 25 African nations such as Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, among others. Also on the list are countries from other regions like Antigua and Barbuda, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, and Syria. It's notable that Nigeria, along with America's close military partners Egypt and Djibouti, are on this potential ban list.
These listed countries have been asked to submit a plan by Wednesday to the U.S. State Department, outlining how they will meet new requirements. U.S. authorities have stated that some of these nations either lack competent government bodies to create reliable identity documents, suffer from widespread government fraud, or have a significant number of citizens who overstay their visas in the U.S.
The memo, sent to U.S. diplomats on Saturday, gives these governments 60 days to meet the new standards set by the State Department. This potential ban follows similar restrictions that were put in place earlier this month on citizens from 12 other countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.
