U.S. President Donald Trump is weighing the next iteration of his controversial travel ban, which could include new, more tailored restrictions on travellers from additional countries.
The Department of Homeland Security has recommended the president impose the new, targeted restrictions on foreign nationals from countries it says refuse to share sufficient information with the U.S. or haven’t taken necessary security precautions. The restrictions could vary by country, officials said.
Mr. Trump’s ban on visitors from six Muslim-majority nations, which sparked protests and a flurry of lawsuits, is set to expire this coming Sunday, 90 days after it took effect.
“The acting secretary has recommended actions that are tough and that are tailored, including restrictions and enhanced screening for certain countries,” Miles Taylor, counsellor to acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke, told reporters on a conference call on Friday.
But officials refused to say how many countries, and which countries, might be affected, insisting the president had yet to make a final decision on how to proceed.
Mr. Trump huddled with Duke, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, his director of national intelligence and his national security adviser yesterday to discuss the issue, White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said.
Mr. Taylor said the recommendations were based on whether countries were providing U.S. authorities with enough information to validate the identities of potential immigrants and visitors and to determine whether or not they posed a threat. The recommendations were first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Friday.
Mr. Trump’s travel ban executive orders remain two of the most controversial actions of his administration. The ban, which went into effect in late June, barred citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen who lacked a “credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States” from entering the country.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of the ban next month.
Officials described the process of reaching the new recommendations as far more deliberate and systematic than Mr. Trump’s original travel ban order, which was signed just days after he took office with little consultation or input outside the White House.
DHS said it had worked with other agencies to develop a comprehensive new baseline for foreign nationals based on factors like whether their countries issued passports with biometric information to prevent fraud and shared information about travellers’ terror-related and criminal histories.
“Our guiding principle,” Taylor said, “was this: We need to know who is coming into our country. We should be able to validate their identities, and we should be able to confirm that our foreign partners do have information suggesting such individuals may represent a threat to the United States.”
The U.S. then shared the new baseline requirements with every foreign government in July and gave them 50 days to comply.
While most countries already met the standards, officials said that some that didn’t have made changes that put them in compliance. Other countries, however, were unable or “deliberately unwilling” to comply. Citizens of those countries would be denied entry or face other travel restrictions until their governments made changes.
